Thursday, February 09, 2006

''I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." --Dick Cheney, May 30, 2005    Report Says Number of Attacks by Insurgents in Iraq Increases By JAMES GLANZ WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — Sweeping statistics on insurgent violence in Iraq that were declassified for a Senate hearing on Wednesday appear to portray a rebellion whose ability to mount attacks has steadily grown in the nearly three years since the invasion. The statistics were included in a report written by Joseph A. Christoff, director of international affairs and trade at the Government Accountability Office, who testified before the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing on Iraq stabilization and reconstruction. The American military declassified the statistics so he could present them to the hearing in his report, Mr. Christoff said in an interview. The figures cover attacks on American and Iraqi forces and civilians. The curve traced out by the figures between June 2003 and December 2005 shows a number of fluctuations, including several large spikes in insurgent activity — one as recently as October of last year. But while American and Iraqi officials have often pointed to the downward edges of those fluctuations as evidence that the steam was going out of the insurgency, the numbers over all seem to tell a different story, Mr. Christoff said. "It's not going down," he said. "There are peaks and valleys, but if you look at every peak, it's higher than the peak before." Officials have recently noted that the numbers of attacks in the final two months of last year dropped after an October peak, which occurred around both Ramadan and a referendum on Iraq's constitution. But Mr. Christoff's chart shows that the number of attacks in December, nearly 2,500, was almost 250 percent of the number in March 2004. But the trend line began even before March 2004, when the number of attacks was already nearly double what it had been in July or August 2003. Mr. Christoff's paper cites a senior United States military officer saying that "attack levels ebb and flow as the various insurgent groups — almost all of which are an intrinsic part of Iraq's population — re-arm and attack again." Attacks against Iraqi security forces have grown faster than the overall count; by December 2005 they had grown more than 200 percent since March 2004. Of course, as more Iraqis are trained and put into the field, more of them are targets. The paper, citing a contracting office in Iraq, said that as attacks had fluctuated downward in the final two months of last year, attacks on convoys related to rebuilding efforts had risen. Twenty convoys had been attacked, with 11 casualties, in October 2005, while 33 convoys had been attacked, with 34 casualties, in January 2006, the paper says. Copyright 2006The New York Times Company 2:20:13 PM     comment []

As any Organized Crime Strike Force can tell you, the Organization goes down when the Capos start ratting out the Boss.   Brown may reveal Bush correspondence Ex-FEMA chief set to testify Friday at Senate hearing on Katrina response The Associated Press Updated: 12:57 p.m. ET Feb. 9, 2006 WASHINGTON - Former disaster agency chief Michael Brown is indicating he is ready to reveal his correspondence with President Bush and other officials during Hurricane Katrina unless the White House forbids it and offers legal support. Brown’s stance, in a letter obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, follows senators’ complaints that the White House is refusing to answer questions or release documents about advice given to Bush concerning the Aug. 29 storm. Brown quit as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency days after Katrina struck. He left the federal payroll Nov. 2. In a Feb. 6 letter to White House counsel Harriet Miers, Brown’s lawyer wrote that Brown continues to respect Bush and his “presidential prerogative” to get candid and confidential advice from top aides. The letter from Andrew W. Lester also says Brown no longer can rely on being included in that protection because he is a private citizen. “Unless there is specific direction otherwise from the president, including an assurance the president will provide a legal defense to Mr. Brown if he refuses to testify as to these matters, Mr. Brown will testify if asked about particular communications,” the lawyer wrote. Brown’s desire “is that all facts be made public.” Friday testimony White House spokesman Trent Duffy declined to comment on the letter, instead pointing to remarks two weeks ago in which Bush avoided directly including Brown among his advisers. At the time, Bush defended his administration’s stance on withholding some information, saying that providing all the material would chill the ability of presidential advisers to speak freely. The White House said it has given 15,000 documents about the storm response to Senate investigators. Brown is set to testify Friday at a Senate inquiry of the slow government response to Katrina. Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who blasted the White House last month for what he called attempts to stonewall the Senate inquiry, said he expects Brown, now a private citizen, “to answer every question the committee puts to him truthfully.” “I see no basis for him to refuse to answer any of our questions, and I hope the White House will not try to direct him not to answer our questions,” Lieberman said. Contacted Wednesday, Brown referred questions about the letter to Lester. The lawyer described his client as “between a rock and a hard place” between the administration’s reluctance to disclose certain high-level communications and Congress’ right to demand it. “Mr. Brown is going to testify before Congress. If he receives no guidance to the contrary, we’ll do as any citizen should do — and that is to answer all questions fully, completely and accurately,” Lester said. No White House response The letter set a 5 p.m. EST deadline Wednesday for the White House to reply to Brown. That passed without a response, Lester said. Some administration officials have refused interviews by Senate investigators or have declined to answer even seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House. The leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee have accused the White House of crippling their inquiry after FEMA lawyers prohibited Brown from responding to some questions during a Jan. 23 staff interview. At that interview, Brown told investigators he was aware of management problems at the agency that were highlighted in a consultant’s report months before Katrina. He attributed some of the problems to the agency’s merger with the Homeland Security Department in 2003. “What I wish I had done was, frankly, just either quit earlier or whatever and gone to certain friends that I can’t talk about and said we got to fix this — I mean, what’s going on is nuts,” Brown said, according to a Senate transcript of the meeting. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said if the problems been addressed earlier, “the response to Hurricane Katrina could have been better organized and perhaps we could have lessened the devastating impact on the people of the Gulf Coast.” © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. © 2006 MSNBC.com 2:02:14 PM     comment []

Willie Nelson Introduces Alternative Fuel February 09, 2006 | SAN DIEGO -- Country singer Willie Nelson introduced California to "BioWillie," his brand of clean-burning fuel made from soybeans. BioWillie went on sale Wednesday at an alternative fuel station in San Diego where the 72-year-old singer filled his tour bus from a pump emblazoned with a picture of himself strumming a guitar. "It is the future," Nelson said. "Through biodiesel, we can reduce dependency on foreign oil and adopt an energy source that's clean renewable and helps family farmers find new uses for their products." Biodiesel is America's fastest growing alternative fuel, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. U.S. sales of biodiesel tripled last year to 75 million gallons, but account for less than 1 percent of the diesel fuel sold nationwide, said Jenna Higgins, a spokeswoman for the National Biodiesel Board. Three years ago, Nelson's wife, Annie, bought a biodiesel-burning car in Hawaii, where the star has a home. The biodiesel that powered her car was made from grease collected from restaurants. The singer then began filling his tour buses with biodiesel. Supplier Peter Bell persuaded Nelson to go into business and use his name and image to help the fuel gain wider acceptance. The BioWillie brand, known as B20, is a blend of 80 percent petroleum diesel and 20 percent biodiesel and is made from soybean oil. In addition to California, it is sold in Texas, South Carolina and Georgia. --__ On the Net: http://www.wnbiodiesel.com/ 11:29:28 AM     comment []

© Copyright 2006 Michael D. Zungolo. Last update: 3/1/2006; 10:12:52 AM.