GAO: Army improperly awarded $150B contract

The Army improperly awarded one of its largest contracts — a 10-year, $150 billion deal to support U.S. troops around the world — and should reconsider its decision, a government agency said Tuesday.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) ruled the Army didn't give enough weight to Pentagon auditors' concerns about the past performance of KBR, which has been the only company providing troop support for six years under the current contract. It was one of three companies selected to share the new contract, which was awarded in June and was supposed to take effect this month.

The GAO said the Army also gave Fluor Corp. "unequal treatment" when awarding the new contract. The Army approved Fluor's proposal even though the proposal relied on different assumptions than those listed in the contract solicitation — a shortcoming that hurt other bidders' proposals, the GAO said.

Government auditors have repeatedly criticized KBR for overcharging and other mismanagement of its work in Iraq. KBR also is a favorite target of congressional Democrats because it used to be a subsidiary of Halliburton, which Dick Cheney once headed.

Karen Hughes, who led efforts to improve the U.S. image abroad and was one of President Bush's last remaining advisers from the close circle of Texas aides, will leave the government at the end of the year.

Hughes told The Associated Press that she plans to quit her job as undersecretary of state and return to Texas, although improving the world's view of the United States is a "long-term challenge" that will outlast her.

"This will take a number of years," Hughes said in an interview Tuesday.

She worked with Bush since the 1990s, first as director of communications while he was governor of Texas, from 1995 to 2000.

The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency has defended the administration's rendition program, in which terrorism suspects are transported to secret prisons in countries with less stringent interrogation rules.

"Our programs are as lawful as they are valuable," said General Michael Hayden.

"These rendition, detention, and interrogation programs are small, carefully run operations," he said, adding that less than a third of the detainees "have required any special methods of questioning".

Atty. Gen.-designate Michael B. Mukasey, adopting a middle ground on an issue that has become central to his nomination, said coercive interrogation methods, including a form of simulated drowning, were "over the line" and "repugnant." But he declined to say whether he thought so-called water-boarding was a form of torture that would be illegal in all cases.

"Mukasey was nominated to be the chief law enforcement officer, not the nation's ethics advisor," said Jennifer Daskal, U.S. advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "He should not be confirmed if he cannot say that water-boarding, a form of mock drowning that has been prosecuted as torture since 1902, is illegal."

"Judge Mukasey makes the point that in the law, precision matters. So do honesty and openness. And on those counts, he falls far short," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.).

Potential prosecution of Blackwater guards allegedly involved in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians last month may have been compromised because the guards received immunity for statements they made to State Department officials investigating the incident, federal law enforcement officials said yesterday.

FBI agents called in to take over the State Department's investigation two weeks after the Sept. 16 shootings cannot use any information gleaned during questioning of the guards by the department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which is charged with supervising security contractors.

Some of the Blackwater guards have subsequently refused to be interviewed by the FBI, citing promises of immunity from State, one law enforcement official said.

The Iraqi government on Tuesday approved draft legislation lifting immunity for foreign private security companies, sending the measure to parliament, a spokesman said.

The government's decision followed reports that the State Department has promised Blackwater bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's shooting.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the draft law approved Tuesday would overturn an immunity order known as Decree 17 that was issued by L. Paul Bremer, who ran the American occupation government until June 2004.

Al-Dabbagh did not single out Blackwater but said: "According to this law, all security companies will subjected to the Iraqi criminal law and must obey all the country's legal regulations such as: registration, customs, visas, etcetera."

Bomb Iran, majority of Americans says in new poll

Despite President Bush's perpetually abysmal approval ratings, his increasingly hostile rhetoric against Iran has drummed up enough fear of a "nuclear holocost" or a World War III that a majority of Americans are in favor of a US strike against the country aimed a curtailing its apparent nuclear ambitions, a new poll shows.

The Zogby International survey shows 52 percent of Americans would support a strike on Iran, while 53 percent expect President Bush to launch such an attack before the end of his second term. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is voters' No. 1 choice to deal with Iran, with 21 percent saying they would like to see her take on Tehran from the White House. Republican Rudy Giuliani was voters' second choice, with 15 percent.

Just 29 percent of Americans think the US should not attack Iran, with one in five people unsure about military action. Of those who would support a strike, 28 percent believe military action should wait until the next president is in office, while 23 percent want to see Bush let lose US missiles against Iran.

. . .

"It is utterly stunning that, after the great difficulties we have clearly faced in Iraq (a situation far from finished, by the way), that an absolute majority would favor a strike on Iran at this time," writes Dr. Steven Taylor at PoliBlog. "Even if we assume that the die-hard 25%-30% who still approve of the way the President is doing his job also are in favor of such a strike, where do the other 27%-22% come from to get the pro-strike total to 52%?"

Retarded

FEMA Spokesman John P. ''Pat'' Philbin Loses Spy Job Offer

The man who staged a fake Federal Emergency Management Agency new conference has lost a chance to be National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell's top public information officer.

John P. ''Pat'' Philbin, FEMA's external affairs director, who had been scheduled to move into the new job on Monday, will not be getting it after last week's phony news conference. The staged question-and-answer session was harshly criticized by both the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, whose department oversees FEMA.

''We do not normally comment on personnel matters,'' DNI spokesman Ross Feinstein said Monday. ''However, we can confirm that Mr. Philbin is not, nor is he scheduled to be, the director of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.''

Feinstein said earlier that Philbin's job change had been put on hold while McConnell reviewed his record....

A half-dozen questions were asked at the event -- by FEMA staff members posing as reporters. Philbin was among the six questioners, according to The Washington Post. The questions included: ''Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?''...

Heckuva Job!

U.S. General injured in Iraq

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Dorko was injured when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Baghdad, Pentagon sources said.

Dorko is believed to the be the highest-ranking military officer injured in the war. He suffered shrapnel wounds and has been evacuated to Germany, the sources said.

Dorko took command of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division in Baghdad on October 10, according to the Corps of Engineers Web site.

Iraq'd

FEMA Meets the Press, Which Happens to Be . . . FEMA

FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has improved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing.

Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices. They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only" line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News, MSNBC and other outlets.

(snip)

"And so I think what you're really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and the benefit of good partnership," Johnson said, "none of which were present in Katrina." (Wasn't Michael Chertoff DHS chief then?) Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's greatness.

Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by "Mike" Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John "Pat" Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.

The State Department with great fanfare on Tuesday signed an agreement with landlocked Mongolia that will allow Mongolian ships to be boarded and searched if they are suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction.

Mongolia -- a vast land that's home to the Gobi Desert, windswept steppes and largely populated by nomadic yak herders -- has no navy at all and lies thousands of miles from open waters.

Brilliant!

The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion in the next decade, according to a nonpartisan budget analysis issued Wednesday.

"We are on an unsustainable fiscal path, and something has to give," CBO director Peter Orszag said in presenting the estimates to the House Budget Committee at the request of its chairman, Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat.

For the first time, the Congressional Budget Office also included interest in its calculations, because the wars have essentially been paid for with federal borrowing. Interest payments on spending so far would total $415 billion. Under the first scenario, there would be an additional $175 billion in interest payments, and under the second scenario, $290 billion in debt service would be added.

"Congress got a predictable answer to its leading question, which was clearly intended to artificially inflate war costs (by) politicians in Washington trying to manage our military commanders," said Sean Kevelighan, press secretary for the White House budget office.

Medea Benjamin remained in the hearing room and was asked to leave after flashing a peace sign with her fingers. She collected her belongings, left and was walking down the hall when 2 Capitol Police approached her and cuffed her.

As more than a million people escaped the flames, Fox News anchors couldn't help speculating about a terrorism link to the blazes ravaging southern California.

"I've heard some people talk about this a little bit to me, but have you heard anybody suggest that this could be some form of terrorism," Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy asked Wednesday morning.

Fox anchors returned to fanning the terror fears, digging up a four-year-old FBI memo and presenting it as new information relating to an al Qaeda link to the fires.

The memo was first reported by the Arizona Republic in July 2003, although a Fox anchor said it was reported "five days ago."

Bush is the biggest spender since LBJ

George W. Bush, despite all his recent bravado about being an apostle of small government and budget-slashing, is the biggest spending president since Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact, he's arguably an even bigger spender than LBJ.

"He's a big government guy," said Stephen Slivinski, the director of budget studies at Cato Institute, a libertarian research group.

The numbers are clear, credible and conclusive, added David Keating, the executive director of the Club for Growth, a budget-watchdog group.

"He's a big spender," Keating said. "No question about it."

Borrow and spend Republican

The Bush administration's disaster assistance chief promised no repeat of the Hurricane Katrina experience Wednesday, saying "this is a new FEMA" as Washington weighed options to help California wildfire victims.

"We're going to make sure this operation runs as smoothly as possible given the size of this disaster," David Paulison, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said when asked if people who lost homes can expect a more aggressive response than when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in late summer 2005.

Bush offers to bomb Kurds

The Bush Administration is considering air strikes, including cruise missiles, against the Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq.

The move would be an attempt to stave off a Turkish invasion of that country to fight the rebels.

President George Bush spoke with Turkish President Abdullah Gul by phone yesterday in an effort to ease the crisis.

And Prime Minister John Howard says the tensions on the Turkey-Iraq border will not help the west's battle for democracy in Iraq.

Mr Howard said there was some recent evidence that US forces were making headway in their battle against al-Qaeda in Iraq following the US troop surge.

Clusterfuckitall

Long Dark Night - John Fogerty

George is in the jungle
knockin' on the door
come to get your children
wants to have a war

Come on, lord you'd better run,
be a long dark night before this thing is done

Brownie's in the outhouse
Katrina on the line
government's a disaster
but George, he says it's fine

Come on, lord you'd better run,
be a long dark night before this thing is done

Rummy's in the kitchen messin' with the pan
Dickie's in the back stealing everything he can
Come on, Lord you'd better run,
be a long dark night before this thing is done

You better run, you better run,
Lord you better run, Lord you better run,

Runnin' down the highway
shoutin' to the Lord
George's got religion
and you know he can't afford more, yeah

Come on, Lord you'd better run
be a long dark night before this thing is done
be a long dark night before this thing is done, oh Lord


I Can't Take It No More - John Fogerty

I can't take it no more
I can't take it no more
I'm sick and tired of your dirty little war
I can't take it no more

You know you lied about the casualties
You know you lied about the WMD's
You know you lied about the detainees
All over this world

Stop talking about staying the course
You keep a-beating that old dead horse
You know you lied about how we went to war
I can't take it no more

I can't take it
I can't take it

I bet you never saw the old school yard
I bet you never saw the national guard
Your daddy wrote a check and there you are
Another fortunate son

I can't take it no more
I can't take it no more
I'm sick and tired of your dirty little war
I can't take it no more

Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties.

The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims' groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events.

"This man did unjust things, and he's being protected and employed and taken care of. It's not a good thing," said one of the accusers, Richard Tollner, who says Placa molested him repeatedly when he was a student at a Long Island, N.Y. Catholic boys high school in 1975.

At a campaign appearance in Milwaukee last week, Giuliani continued to defend Placa, who he described to reporters as a close friend for 39 years.

Bless you my son!

The long and the short of it was that an Egpytian national, Abdallah Higazy, was staying in a hotel in New York City on September 11 and the hotel emptied out when the planes hit the towers. The hotel later found in the closet of his room a device that allows you to communicate with airline pilots. Investigators thought this guy had something to do with 9/11 so they questioned him. According to Higazi, the investigators coerced him into confessing to a role in 9/11. Higazi first adamantly denied any involvement with 9/11 and could not believe what was happening to him. Then, he says, the investigator said his family would go through hell in Egypt, where they torture people like Saddam Hussein. Higazy then realized he had a choice: he could continue denying the radio was his and his fa