History > 2007 > USA > Politics > White House

George W. Bush (III)

Bush Sees

South Korea Model

for Iraq

May 31, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:46 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said Wednesday.

The comparison was offered as the Pentagon announced the completion of the troop buildup ordered by Bush in January. The last of about 21,500 combat troops to arrive were an Army brigade in Baghdad and a Marine unit heading into the Anbar province in western Iraq.

Brig. Gen. Perry Wiggins, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there are now 20 combat brigades in Iraq, up from 15 when the buildup began. A brigade is roughly 3,500 troops. Overall, the Pentagon said there are 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. That number may still climb as more support troops move in.

The administration warns that the buildup will result in more U.S. casualties as more American soldiers come into contact with enemy forces. May already is the third bloodiest month since the war began in March 2003. As of late Tuesday, there were 116 U.S. deaths in Iraq so far in May -- trailing only the 137 in November 2004 and the 135 in April 2004. Overall, more than 3,460 U.S. service members have died.

Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said Bush has cited the long-term Korea analogy in looking at the U.S. role in Iraq, where American forces are in the fifth year of an unpopular war. Bush's goal is for Iraqi forces to take over the chief security responsibilities, relieving U.S. forces of frontline combat duty, Snow said.

''I think the point he's trying to make is that the situation in Iraq, and indeed, the larger war on terror, are things that are going to take a long time,'' Snow said. ''But it is not always going to require an up-front combat presence.''

Instead, he said, U.S. troops would provide ''the so-called over-the-horizon support that is necessary from time to time to come to the assistance of the Iraqis. But you do not want the United States forever in the front.''

The comparison with South Korea paints a picture of a lengthy U.S. commitment at a time when Americans have grown weary of the Iraq war and want U.S. troops to start coming home. Bush vetoed legislation that would set timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals, and forced Congress to approve a new bill stripped of troop pullout language.

Asked if U.S. forces would be permanently stationed in Iraq, Snow said, ''No, not necessarily.'' He said that the prospect of permanent U.S. bases in Iraq were ''not necessarily the case, either.''

Later, Snow said it was impossible to say if U.S. troops would remain in Iraq for some 50 years, as they have in South Korea. ''I don't know,'' he said. ''It is an unanswerable question. But I'm not making that suggestion. ... The war on terror is a long war.''

South Korea is just one example of U.S. troops stationed more than a half-century after war. Germany and Japan are two other examples. American forces are deployed in roughly 130 countries around the world, performing a variety of duties from combat to peacekeeping to training foreign militaries, according to GlobalSecurity.org, a defense-oriented think tank.

In South Korea, about 29,500 U.S. troops are stationed as a deterrent against the communist North, but that number is to decline to 24,500 by 2008 as part of the Pentagon's worldwide realignment of its forces. The two Koreas remain technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.

Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, seemed a surprising choice when he got the job earlier this year, yet his experience as U.S. commander in the Pacific overseeing the Korean peninsula would serve him well if the U.S. military adopts a Korea model in Iraq.

AP writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report from the Pentagon.

    Bush Sees South Korea Model for Iraq, NYT, 31.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Iraq.html

Bush Requests $30 Billion to Fight AIDS

May 31, 2007
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, May 30 — President Bush called Wednesday for Congress to spend $30 billion to fight global AIDS over the next five years, a near doubling of financing that is part of a White House effort to burnish Mr. Bush’s humanitarian credentials before he meets leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations next week.

The initiative, if approved, would build on a program that grew out of the president’s 2003 State of the Union address, when he asked for $15 billion over five years for prevention, treatment and care of AIDS patients in developing countries. Congress approved more than $18 billion, but the program is set to expire next year.

Mr. Bush’s announcement, delivered in the White House Rose Garden, adds to what has become an unexpectedly high priority for the White House. AIDS was not a signature issue for Mr. Bush when he ran for office in 2000. But it has become one in part because the Christian conservatives who make up his political base have embraced it, and in part because Mr. Bush wants to build a legacy for the United States and a more compassionate image abroad to counter international criticism of American policies in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

That sentiment was reflected in Mr. Bush’s remarks on Wednesday.

“Once again, the generosity of the American people is one of the great untold stories of our time,” he said. “Our citizens are offering comfort to millions who suffer, and restoring hope to those who feel forsaken.”

AIDS advocacy organizations praised Mr. Bush for proposing the additional money, but said the plan — which he said would provide drugs for 2.5 million patients — did not go nearly far enough toward meeting the international community’s stated goal of treating the estimated 10 million patients in developing nations.

“It’s a modest increase, it’s important that he reaffirmed it, but we will need the next president to do more,” said Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group. “We’re not getting ahead of the AIDS crisis. We’re tempering it.”

Administration officials concede that point and say the White House is hoping Mr. Bush’s announcement will prod other Group of 8 countries, as well as nations that have growing economies, to make spending commitments of their own.

“The goal of universal access isn’t a United States goal, it’s a global goal,” said Mark R. Dybul, the administration’s global AIDS coordinator. “The rest of the world is going to need to respond if we are going to achieve these goals.”

International development and human rights issues will be high on the agenda of next week’s summit, but so will climate change — an issue on which Mr. Bush finds himself at odds with his fellow Group of 8 leaders, notably the meeting’s host, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. Dan Bartlett, counselor to Mr. Bush, said the president intended to address climate change in a speech on Thursday at the United States Agency for International Development.

But so far this week, Mr. Bush has been devoting most of his attention to human rights and poverty, issues that draw him less criticism than his stance on climate change. In an interview Monday night, a senior administration official said Mr. Bush planned to spend the week in advance of the Group of 8 conference spotlighting humanitarian issues and “demonstrating U.S. leadership around the world.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Bush announced he was imposing stiff economic sanctions on Sudan to press its government into cooperating with a United Nations peacekeeping force that is trying to end the violence in Darfur.

On Wednesday, in addition to the AIDS announcement, Mr. Bush named Robert B. Zoellick, his former trade representative, as his candidate to head the World Bank, calling the nominee “a committed internationalist” who “wants to help struggling nations defeat poverty.” In Thursday’s speech, Mr. Bush also intends to talk about education programs in the developing world, and his initiative to combat malaria.

The AIDS initiative, which is likely to generate bipartisan support in Congress, would cover federal spending for the 2009 to 2013 fiscal years, meaning the vast majority of the money would be spent after Mr. Bush left office. To promote it, the White House is sending Laura Bush to Africa next month.

“She and I share a passion,” Mr. Bush said. “We believe that to whom much is given, much is required.”

The United Nations reports that there are nearly 40 million people worldwide living with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS; last year three million died from their infections. In his announcement in 2003, Mr. Bush said he was committed to offering treatment for two million H.I.V. patients by 2008. But so far, he said, the program, called the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, has paid for treatment for just 1.1 million people in 15 nations.

Advocates complain that the new goal, bringing the number of patients treated to 2.5 million, is not that much more ambitious than the old one. “By 2013 there will be 12 million people that urgently need medicines,” Mr. Zeitz said.

The White House, however, said that in addition to providing treatment for 2.5 million, the new money would prevent 12 million new infections and provide care for more than 12 million people.

Mr. Bartlett said the president was convinced America’s image in the world would improve because of it.

“I’ve heard him talk about this is a part of America that gets overlooked,” he said, “and that over time, people will look back and say, ‘At a point in time where America may have been under scrutiny for other reasons, look at the significant contribution they have made. They saved more lives than anybody could have imagined.’ ”

    Bush Requests $30 Billion to Fight AIDS, NYT, 31.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/washington/31prexy.html

Bush to Name Zoellick to Lead World Bank

May 30, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:39 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Robert Zoellick, a Goldman Sachs executive who has built contacts around the globe as President Bush's trade chief and as the country's No. 2 diplomat, is the White House's choice to be the next World Bank president.

Bush was to announce the decision Wednesday, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of Bush's announcement.

Zoellick, 53, would succeed Paul Wolfowitz, who is stepping down June 30 after findings by a special bank panel that he broke bank rules when he arranged a hefty compensation package in 2005 for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, a bank employee.

The controversy led to calls for Wolfowitz to resign from the poverty-fighting institution.

A seasoned veteran of politics both inside the Beltway and on the international stage, Zoellick is known for pulling facts and figures off the top of his head. He also has a reputation for being a demanding boss.

Bush's selection of Zoellick must be approved by the World Bank's 24-member board.

The bank's board in a statement late Tuesday made no mention of Zoellick by name and noted that any executive director could nominate a candidate. The board said it was essential that the next president, among other things, have ''political objectivity and independence.''

Zoellick announced last June that he was leaving his post as deputy secretary of state to join the Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs and work to develop investment markets around the world.

If ultimately approved as World Bank chief, Zoellick will need to regain trust, rebuild credibility and mend frayed relations inside the institution as well as with its member countries around the world.

All those matters are critical for the bank's new leader, who will have to persuade countries to contribute nearly $30 billion over the next few years to fund a centerpiece bank program that provides interest-free loans to the world's poorest countries.

''The test of Zoellick is whether he manages to turn around the bank, which has been in huge disarray,'' said Elizabeth Stuart, senior policy adviser for Oxfam International, a group involved in helping the world's poor.

Zoellick could build upon strong relations he has developed worldwide as deputy secretary and U.S. Trade Representative. He was involved in peace talks in Sudan and as USTR he played a key role in negotiations to bring China into the World Trade Organization. He forged free trade deals between the United States and other countries, including Singapore, Chile, Australia and Morocco.

Some global health and environment groups expressed concerns over Zoellick as the next bank chief.

Peru, however, welcomed the selection.

''My impression is that it's a good choice President Bush is making,'' Peruvian Foreign Trade Minister Mercedes Araoz told The Associated Press. ''He was a driving force of the U.S. trade agenda in seeking association with developing countries, among them Peru.''

The Wolfowitz episode threw the bank's staff into a revolt, strained relations with the Europeans, and threatened to tarnish the bank's reputation and hobble its ability to fight poverty.

Before taking the helm in 2005, Wolfowitz was the No. 2 official at the Pentagon and played a key role in mapping out the war in Iraq. From the beginning, Europeans and others were upset that Bush would pick someone to run the bank who was so closely associated with the war.

------

On the Net:

The World Bank http://www.worldbank.org/ 

    Bush to Name Zoellick to Lead World Bank, NYT, 30.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-World-Bank-Bush.html

Bush Takes On Conservatives Over Immigration

May 30, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

GLYNCO, Ga., May 29 — President Bush took on parts of his conservative base on Tuesday by accusing opponents of his proposed immigration measure of fear-mongering to defeat its passage in Congress.

“If you want to scare the American people, what you say is the bill’s an amnesty bill,” Mr. Bush said at a training center for customs protection agents and other federal agents here in southeastern Georgia. “That’s empty political rhetoric trying to frighten our citizens.”

It was some of Mr. Bush’s toughest language as he started an intensified effort to build support for the compromise bill in the Senate.

The measure hews to Mr. Bush’s long-sought goal of a new system with a path to citizenship for 12 million illegal immigrants, a guest-worker program for noncitizens and tighter borders.

The compromise, which leaders of both parties struck almost two weeks ago, has met stiff resistance from the left and right of both parties. Liberals tend to oppose the section that would add emphasis on admitting immigrants with education and job skills and less on family reunification. Conservatives tend to dismiss the plan as an amnesty bill.

It was the conservative opponents to whom Mr. Bush seemed to speak most forcefully here.

“If you want to kill the bill,” he said, “if you don’t want to do what’s right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it. You can use it to frighten people.”

A senior official said later, “In no way was he questioning anyone’s patriotism or desire to do what’s right.”

It was a rare case of the president’s taking on the coalition that helped him win and keep the Oval Office, the same conservative radio hosts, bloggers, writers and members of Congress who contributed significantly to the defeat of immigration measures last year.

Mr. Bush spoke at a critical time, as lawmakers return home to hear from constituents on a 10-day break.

In the late spring recess last year, grass-roots opponents of an immigration bill barraged their representatives with complaints that it would amount to amnesty for lawbreakers, effectively killing its chance for passage.

Unlike the circumstances last year, when the White House was willing to put party unity above a controversial presidential initiative in an election year, Mr. Bush is determined to head off a similar result this time.

Lawmakers already saw echoes of last year. In California, two conservative talk show hosts urged listeners to bombard the telephone lines of Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, to register their opposition.

In South Carolina, Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican critic of the proposal, said that on a walk in downtown Spartanburg and lunch with more than 100 people at Wade’s restaurant on Tuesday he was hard pressed to find anyone who backed the Senate plan. Concern centered on whether promised enforcement would materialize, Mr. DeMint said.

“This is not playing well in South Carolina,” he said.

But like the president, business groups, advocates for immigrants, and religious and civil rights organizations urged Congress to keep working to shape a comprehensive immigration bill.

In Phoenix, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry praised the bill and said it “provides the proper framework for restructuring the flawed U.S. immigration system.”

The chief Republican architect of the bill, Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, has been criticized by some in his state party who object to offering legal status to illegal immigrants.

Glenn E. Hamer, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, praised Mr. Kyl as “demonstrating tremendous leadership on this critical issue.”

Mr. Hamer said a spokesman for his organization conveyed this message on Spanish-language radio and television stations: “The Senate bill has all the necessary ingredients. It’s a huge step forward.”

An umbrella group, the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, reached out this week to members of Congress in 23 states and urged them to act on the question.

“Congress has a historic opportunity to fix our immigration system and must not waste it,” said Clarissa Martinez, campaign manager of the coalition, which is holding rallies and vigils, making telephone calls and sending letters and postcards to lawmakers.

Ms. Martinez said her group, whose 43 members include the Center for Community Change, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Council of La Raza and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, sought substantial changes in the Senate bill to promote the reunification of families and to change the guest worker program so that temporary workers would not have to leave for 12 months between two-year stays.

Mr. Bush’s visit to the training center here was primarily meant to demonstrate that he has imposed strong measures to improve border security lapses, a problem that conservatives have loudly complained about.

Now, he said, it is time to relieve pressure on the border by creating a “rationalized” system.

“People in Congress need the courage to go back to their districts and explain exactly what this bill is all about,” Mr. Bush said. “The fundamental question is will elected officials have the courage necessary to put a comprehensive immigration plan in place that makes it more likely we can enforce our border and, at the same time, uphold the great traditions of immigrant traditions of the United States of America?”

The address, given under a blazing sun before several hundred trainees and instructors, was his most direct attempt to brush back critics from both sides who the administration says have distorted the details of the bill.

The appearance followed nearly two weeks in which officials have given dozens of interviews to radio hosts, editorial pages and newspapers pushing for the plan.

Mr. Bush and his allies have faced an important rhetorical disadvantage, particularly from the right. Conservative opponents can use one word, amnesty, against the bill.

Supporters, the president included, are forced into the complex weeds of policy and the nuances of legislative language. Mr. Bush tried to offset the difference by discrediting the amnesty accusation.

“Amnesty is forgiveness for being here without any penalties,” Mr. Bush said. “That’s what amnesty is. I oppose it. The authors, many of the authors, of this bill oppose it. This bill is not an amnesty bill.”

Under the Senate bill, illegal immigrants who want to become citizens would have to pay back taxes and pay thousands of dollars in fines.

Carl Hulse and Robert Pear contributed reporting from Washington.

    Bush Takes On Conservatives Over Immigration, NYT, 30.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/30/washington/30immig.html?hp

Bush Attacks Immigration Deal Opponents

May 29, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:52 p.m. ET
The New York Times

GLYNCO, Ga. (AP) -- President Bush attacked opponents of an immigration deal Tuesday, suggesting they ''don't want to do what's right for America.''

''The fundamental question is, will elected officials have the courage necessary to put a comprehensive immigration plan in place,'' Bush said against a backdrop of a huge American flag.

He described his proposal -- which has been agreed to by a bipartisan group of senators -- as one that ''makes it more likely we can enforce our border -- and at the same time uphold the great immigrant tradition of the United States of America.''

Bush spoke at the nation's largest training center for law enforcement.

He chose the get-tough setting as conservative critics blast a Senate proposal as being soft on people who break the law. Hoping to blunt that message, Bush emphasized that any new options for immigrants and foreign workers would not start until tougher security is in place.

The presidential stop came during a congressional recess, with senators back home and facing pressure from the left and right on the immigration plan. Bush's aim is to build momentum for the legislation, perhaps his best chance for a signature victory in his second term. The Senate expects to resume debate on it next week.

''A lot of Americans are skeptical about immigration reform, primarily because they don't think the government can fix the problems,'' Bush said.

''And my answer to the skeptics is: give us a chance to fix the problems in a comprehensive way that enforces our border and treats people with decency and respect. Give us a chance to fix this problem. Don't try to kill this bill before it gets moving,'' Bush told students and instructors at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

Bush repeatedly cast the matter as one of political courage.

''Those determined to find fault with this bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like,'' the president said. ''If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it.

''You can use it to frighten people,'' Bush said. ''Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all.''

The bill would give temporary legal status to millions of unlawful immigrants, provided they came forward, paid a fine and underwent criminal background checks. To apply for a green card, they would have to pay another fine, learn English, return to their home country and wait in line.

The plan also would create a guest worker program. It would allow foreign laborers to come to the U.S. for temporary stints, yet with no guarantee they can eventually gain citizenship.

Both the new visa plan and the temporary worker program are contingent on other steps coming first. Those include fencing and barriers along the Mexico border, the hiring of more Border Patrol agents and the completion of an identification system to verify employees' legal status.

The legislation would also reshape future immigration decisions. A new point system would prioritize skills and education over family in deciding who can immigrate.

Georgia's senators both played leading roles in producing Bush's deal with the Senate. Yet they have also said they may not support the final bill, depending upon how it is amended.

Bush chastised those who say the proposal offers amnesty to illegal immigrants. He called it empty political rhetoric.

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On The Net:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

    Bush Attacks Immigration Deal Opponents, NYT, 29.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

U.S. Rejects EU - Asia Emissions Reduction

May 29, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:22 p.m. ET
The New York Times

BERLIN (AP) -- The United States rejects the European Union's all-encompassing target on reduction of carbon emissions, President Bush's environmental adviser said Tuesday.

James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the United States is not against setting goals but prefers to focus them on specific sectors, such as reducing dependence on gasoline and cleaner coal. ''The U.S. has different sets of targets,'' he said.

Germany, which holds the European Union and G-8 presidencies, is proposing a so-called ''two-degree'' target, whereby global temperatures would be allowed to increase no more than 2 degrees Celsius -- the equivalent of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit -- before being brought back down. Practically, experts have said that means a global reduction in emissions of 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Connaughton, who is on a one-week bipartisan trip to Europe with members of the House of Representatives, said the U.S. favors ''setting targets in the context of national circumstances.''

European and Asian foreign ministers agreed to set a 2009 deadline to complete negotiations on a new international climate change pact to limit greenhouse gases, diplomats said Tuesday.

Under the agreement, which came during two-day talks here, Asian nations -- including China and India -- will not have to adhere to binding targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Instead, ministers outlined the responsibilities of richer and poorer nations in combatting climate change, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

The meeting of the 40-some ministers, chaired by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also agreed to coordinate the promotion of more sustainable energy use, the diplomats said.

China and India balked at carbon dioxide emissions cuts after the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

Diplomats said setting the 2009 deadline goal to reach a new emissions agreement was necessary to avoid a lapse when the Kyoto Protocol expires.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the EU should not expect developing countries like China or India to share the same burden of cuts as richer nations. He said China ''was not to blame for the problem'' of climate change, but said his country had taken measures to reduce its emissions.

The 27-nation EU bloc is eager to get China and other major polluters on board a new climate change pact and negotiations are scheduled to begin in December in Bali, Indonesia.

Japanese officials have also expressed reservations about setting specific targets in the early stages of negotiations for fear of discouraging major emitters -- such as the United States, China and India -- from participating.

Tokyo has said the new pact should be flexible, strike a balance between environmental protection and economic growth, and promote new green technologies.

China has called on the EU to share more green technologies with developing nations to speed up moves for economies to become more environmentally friendly. European nations have been reluctant to allow more technology transfers to China unless Beijing moves to give more market access for European goods and services.

A U.S. government report issued Tuesday said Asian nations could reduce a quarter of their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 if they increase renewable energy use, improve coal-fired power plant efficiency and switch to biofuels.

However, the report from the U.S. Agency for International Development did not mention setting mandatory greenhouse gas emission cuts, which European countries and many environmentalists say should be part of the solution.

Failing to implement cleaner technologies will result in heat-trapping greenhouse gases more than tripling by 2030 for much of Asia, said the USAID report, the latest dire warning that inaction could be catastrophic for the planet.

With Asia's energy demand soaring Europe remains eager to promote renewable energies and energy efficient technologies to cut overall consumption and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The Europeans also need carbon credits from investments in clean energy projects in developing countries to meet their commitments under the Kyoto treaty.

The Hamburg talks were seen as an attempt by the EU ally itself with Asian countries as a means of persuading the United States to come on board.

The U.S. refused to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol limiting emissions because developing countries were not included. Rising economic giants, China and India, are exempt, and the treaty says nothing about post-2012 cuts.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is hoping to make progress on persuading the U.S. and others at the June 6-8 G-8 summit in Heiligendamm, but preliminary meetings including an EU-US summit in Washington have not offered promising results.

AP Environmental Writer Michael Casey contributed to this report from Bangkok, Thailand

    U.S. Rejects EU - Asia Emissions Reduction, NYT, 29.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-EU-Asia.html

Bush Plans Aid to Ga., Fla. After Fires

May 29, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:59 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) -- President Bush on Tuesday pledged federal help in response to wildfires that have savaged parts of Georgia and Florida.

The current wave amounts to one of the largest fires ever to hit the South. Drought conditions have dried up swamps and wetlands that typically serve as fire barriers.

''I've come down to let people know we are concerned about their livelihood,'' the president said at a briefing with state and local officials.

''Right now the coordination is good in terms of fighting the fires,'' he said. ''The question is how can we help them even more,'' Bush said.

The president stopped in Brunswick before delivering a speech in Glynco, Ga., about his proposal to overhaul the nation's immigration system.

    Bush Plans Aid to Ga., Fla. After Fires, NYT, 29.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

Bush Tightens Fiscal Penalties Against Sudan

May 29, 2007
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, May 29 — President Bush announced today that he is imposing stiff economic sanctions against Sudan and that he will press the United Nations for additional action to end the violence in Darfur.

“The people of Sudan are crying out for help and they deserve it,” he said in a brief statement at the White House.

The decision makes good on a threat the president made nearly six weeks ago. Mr. Bush warned then that the United States would act if Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, did not permit a full deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces, allow aid to reach the Darfur region and end his support for the janjaweed, the militias that have been systematically killing civilians there.

Mr. Bush leaves next week for Europe to attend a meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations, where Darfur is expected to be an issue. Two senior administration officials, who spoke anonymously on Monday before Mr. Bush had given the speech, said Mr. Bush wanted to act before then.

Specifically, the president outlined four steps, which the officials said would all be effective immediately.

First, he will step up enforcement of existing economic sanctions against 100 or so Sudanese companies already barred from doing business with the United States.

Second, he will add 31 additional companies to the sanctions list, barring them from any dollar transactions within the United States financial system.

Of those companies, 30 are controlled by the Sudanese government, and at least one is violating an embargo against shipping arms to Darfur.

“All these companies are now barred from the U.S. financial system,” Mr. Bush said. “It is a crime for American companies and individuals to knowingly do business with them.”

Third, Mr. Bush said he would target sanctions against individuals responsible for violence. This means singling out two senior officials and a rebel leader for sanctions, senior administration officials said.

Mr. Bush said this would call “the world’s attention to their crimes.”

Finally, Mr. Bush said he will direct Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to consult with Britain and other allies to seek United Nations approval for an international resolution to impose a broad arms embargo against Sudan and to bar the Sudanese government from conducting any military flights in Darfur.

Mr. Bush has long been trying to find a way to end what his administration has termed genocide in Darfur, in western Sudan, where at least 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million displaced.

He has been under intense pressure from human rights advocates to act, and many expected him to announce measures against Sudan last month in a speech he delivered at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

Instead, Mr. Bush bowed to pressure from the United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, who had been trying to pursue a diplomatic course with Mr. Bashir.

In the days before the president’s April 18 speech, Mr. Ban called Ms. Rice to ask for more time to negotiate with the Sudanese leader, and administration officials said then that Mr. Bush decided reluctantly to give it to him.

“I have made a decision to allow the secretary general more time to pursue his diplomacy,” Mr. Bush said then, while at the same time adding, “The time for promises is over — President Bashir must act.”

In the statement today, which was highly critical of Mr. Bashir, Mr. Bush said the Sudanese leader had not met his obligations to stop the killing in Darfur.

“President Bashir’s actions over the past few weeks follow a long pattern of promising cooperation while finding new methods for obstruction,” he said.

Although the Bush administration has classified the situation in Darfur as genocide, the United Nations has not. The administration officials said the secretary general had been made aware of Mr. Bush’s plans for sanctions, though they would not say if Mr. Bush had spoken personally with Mr. Ban.

It remains unclear how Mr. Bush’s announcement will be received at the United Nations.

The Sudanese government today criticized the sanctions, Reuters reported.

“I think these sanctions are not justified,” Mutrif Siddig, Sudanese undersecretary for foreign affairs, told Reuters in Khartoum. “It is not timely. We are cooperating well with the United Nations.”

After the president’s speech last month, ambassadors from China, Russia and South Africa said they were not yet convinced of the need for sanctions. In Beijing today, China’s representative on African affairs, Liu Guijin, told Reuters: “Expanding sanctions can only make the problem more difficult to resolve.” He said that it was too soon to say whether China would veto any United Nations resolution against Sudan, Reuters reported.

Mr. Bush is said by officials to be extremely frustrated with the situation in Darfur, and his top aides have been saying for months that they were upset with Sudan’s refusal to permit the deployment of United Nations peacekeepers in the country or to allow relief aid to reach the region.

At the same time, saving Darfur has become a powerful political cause, not only among human rights advocates but also among religious groups, including some of the Christian conservatives who make up Mr. Bush’s political base.

The administration’s frustration spilled out in the open in March, when Andrew S. Natsios, the United States special envoy to Sudan, laid out the package of sanctions that the president was to announce today in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Then, just a day before Mr. Bush’s April speech at the Holocaust Museum, a confidential United Nations study found that Sudan was flying arms and heavy equipment into Darfur in planes painted white, apparently to masquerade as United Nations jets.

In the weeks since that speech, the senior administration officials said that they had seen little change in Darfur. If anything, they said, the violence there grew worse. “In the time since that speech at the Holocaust museum, he has done nothing to meet his obligations,” one of the officials said of Mr. Bashir. “Instead, he’s bombed a meeting of religious leaders, he kept food from his people, they painted an aircraft white to look like a U.N. jet.”

The officials were asked how many people have died since Mr. Bush gave the speech. “I couldn’t say we have specific numbers on how many people have died,” one of them said, though he added, “The displacement numbers have only grown.”

Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.

    Bush Tightens Fiscal Penalties Against Sudan, NYT, 29.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/world/africa/29cnd-darfur.html?hp

Bush Visits Troops Wounded in War

May 25, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:26 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) -- President Bush began Memorial Day weekend on Friday at the bedside of wounded U.S. troops, handing out Purple Hearts to recognize valiant service.

Bush visited with troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, their families and the medical staff at the National Naval Medical Center just outside Washington. The president was making his seventh visit to the medical center before flying aboard Marine One helicopter to Camp David, Md., where he planned to spend part of the weekend.

On Monday, Bush will mark his sixth Memorial Day as a wartime president with a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. He is to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns to honor those who have died in past and current battles.

The president makes occasional visits to either the Navy facility or Walter Reed Army Medical Center, nearby in Washington, to talk with soldiers recovering from injuries suffered in Iraq or Afghanistan.

    Bush Visits Troops Wounded in War, NYT, 25.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

Bush Supports $120 Billion Iraq War Compromise

May 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:28 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said he supports a $120 billion war spending bill on track to pass Thursday, ending weeks of wrangling with Democrats on whether to end the war.

The bill funds the war through September as Bush wanted and does not set a date for U.S. troop withdrawals. In exchange for dropping restrictions on the military, Bush agreed to some $17 billion in spending added by Democrats to fund domestic and military-related projects.

''By voting for this bill, members of both parties can show our troops and the Iraqis and the enemy that our country will support our service men and women in harm's way,'' Bush said in a Rose Garden news conference.

The House voted 218-201 to advance the measure, paving the way for a final vote later that day. Democrats, who said they were disappointed with the White House deal, agreed not to block debate so long as the House would vote later this year on a separate proposal to bring troops come home before July 2008.

''I hate this agreement,'' said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Obey said the deal was the best that Democrats could do manage because ''the White House is in a cloud somewhere in terms of understanding the realities in Iraq.''

The bill includes the nearly $100 billion that President Bush requested for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as billions in domestic spending, including $6.4 billion in hurricane relief and $3 billion in agricultural assistance.

Republicans were unhappy about the added domestic spending, but said they were relieved the final measure did not attempt to set a timetable on the war.

''We cannot and will not abandon the Iraqis to be butchered by these terrorists in their midst,'' said Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif. ''And we cannot and will not abandon our mission just as real progress is starting to be made.''

While the measure does not include a timetable on the war, it does threaten to withhold U.S. aid dollars for Iraq if Baghdad fails to make progress on political and security reforms. The president, however, could waive that restriction.

The bill also for the first time explicitly states that the U.S. would leave Iraq if asked by the Baghdad government.

Bush said Iraq's ability to meet the benchmarks outlined in the bill would be difficult.

''It's going to be hard work for this young government,'' he said. ''After all, the Iraqis are recovering from decades of brutal dictatorship.''

The hefty spending bill has become a lightning rod for political attacks on Bush and his handling of the deeply unpopular war, which has killed more than 3,400 U.S. troops and cost more than $300 billion. But it also has exposed a sharp divide among Democrats on how far Congress should go to end the war.

Democratic presidential contenders on Capitol Hill are vying for the anti-war vote, but at the same time do not want to appear as though they are turning their backs on the military.

''I believe as long as we have troops in the front line, we're going to have to protect them,'' said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del. ''We're going to have to fund them.''

Biden was alone among the potential Democratic candidates in immediately pledging his support for the bill.

Two front-runners, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, declined to say how they intended to vote on the measure.

Challengers Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio said they would oppose the measure because in their view it issued a blank check to President Bush on the Iraq war.

''Half-measures and equivocations are not going to change our course in Iraq,'' Dodd said in a statement. ''If we are serious about ending the war, Congress must stand up to this president's failed policy now -- with clarity and conviction.''

Democratic leaders planned multiple votes in the House on Thursday to ensure the measure would ultimately pass because of disagreements among members on elements of the bill. One vote was to be on war funding, while another would be to approve the extra money for domestic and military-related projects.

While liberal Democrats were expected to vote against the war funds measure, GOP members were expected to make up for the losses. On the added spending, Democrats likely were to be unified in their support for the measure, overcoming GOP objections.

    Bush Supports $120 Billion Iraq War Compromise, NYT, 24.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Bush Backs Gonzales in Face of No-Confidence Vote

May 24, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, May 24 — President Bush once more reaffirmed his confidence in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales today, while Senate Democrats offered a resolution declaring that they have no confidence in him.

“I’ve got confidence in Al Gonzales doing the job,” Mr. Bush said at a White House news conference after he was asked if he was worried about “the cumulative picture” of the Justice Department that is emerging following the dismissals of United States attorneys and whether the president could assure the American people that the department is “delivering impartial justice.”

Mr. Bush has reaffirmed his support for Mr. Gonzales, an old friend from Texas, every time he has been asked. But today’s question-and-answer session came a day after Monica M. Goodling, a former Justice Department official who acted as a department liaison with the White House, acknowledged that she “crossed the line” in weighing the political beliefs of prospects for nonpolitical jobs at the Justice Department.

Mr. Bush noted that the Justice Department is conducting its own internal investigation of possible improprieties related to the dismissals of United States attorneys last year. “This will be an exhaustive investigation,” he said. “And if there’s wrongdoing, it will be taken care of.”

Shortly after the president spoke in the Rose Garden of the White House, Senators Charles E. Schumer, Dianne Feinstein of California and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Democrats who are on the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the text of a resolution declaring no confidence in Mr. Gonzales.

The measure, which would be symbolic and nonbinding, is expected to be introduced on the Senate floor after the Memorial Day recess. It declares that it is the sense of the Senate that Mr. Gonzales no longer enjoys the confidence of the American people.

“We full intend to bring this vote, we expect it to pass, and for the good of the Justice Department and the rule of law in this country, we believe it is the right thing to do,” Mr. Schumer said.

Ms. Feinstein said Mr. Gonzales was “clearly not a strong leader,” while Mr. Whitehouse, himself a former United States attorney, said he was dismayed to watch the Justice Department’s tradition of fairness and impartiality “systematically destroyed or degraded.”

The three senators cited Wednesday’s testimony by Ms. Goodling.

Ms. Goodling, who testified under a grant of immunity before the House Judiciary Committee, appeared to contradict Mr. Gonzales, who told the committee earlier that he had not spoken to senior department aides since the dismissals “to protect the integrity of the investigation.”

But Ms. Goodling told the panel that at a meeting in March, just before she resigned, Mr. Gonzales asked her questions that made her uncomfortable, as though he was trying to coach her so their accounts would be consistent. (The Justice Department issued a statement on Wednesday saying that Mr. Gonzales was only trying to comfort Ms. Goodling in the difficult time before her departure.)

Mr. Bush said the continuing investigations on Capitol Hill are just acts in a “grand political theater,” and he urged the lawmakers to turn their attention to “passing legislation that is meaningful for the country.”

The president seemed to brush aside any suggestion that Mr. Gonzales had been less than forthcoming. “Attorney General Gonzales has testified; he produced documents,” Mr. Bush said, calling on the House and Senate to “move expeditiously to finish their hearings.”

    Bush Backs Gonzales in Face of No-Confidence Vote, NYT, 24.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/washington/24cnd-attorneys.html?hp

Bush Wants Tougher Sanctions on Iran

May 24, 2007
The New York Times
By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON, May 24 — President George W. Bush said today that he would seek tougher sanctions against Iran for defiantly pursuing a uranium-enrichment program that Western governments believe is intended to help develop nuclear weapons.

“We need to strengthen our sanctions regime,” he said at a news conference. “We will work with our European partners to develop further sanctions.”

Mr. Bush did not react to an earlier comment from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said in Tehran today that that country’s nuclear “path is irreversible.” A new report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency this week said that Iran’s nuclear program has made important strides in recent months, while withholding vital information from international inspectors.

The 50-minute news conference, held in the bright late-morning sunshine of the Rose Garden on the White House grounds, was dominated by questions about Iraq. Mr. Bush lauded the compromise war spending bill awaiting passage in the Democratic-controlled Congress and warned again that a premature withdrawal from Iraq would be “catastrophic.”

He was also asked about progress in the high-level trade talks with China that were held this week in Washington. “We’re watching very carefully as to whether or not they will appreciate their currency,” Mr. Bush said, alluding to a persistent American complaint that China has kept the yuan artificially weak to aid its exporters, worsening the huge American trade deficit.

On Iraq, though, Mr. Bush found himself contending with conflicting imperatives. Though Republicans have sought to portray the compromise war-spending bill as a victory over Democrats who tried unsuccessfully to tie the money to a timetable for withdrawal, the president still faces mounting public discontent with the war.

Even Republican politicians say their patience will wear thin if progress is not evident by September.

That discontent reached new highs in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, which was released today. In the survey, 6 people in 10 said the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, and more than three-fourths said things are going badly there — including nearly half who say things are going very badly.

In the poll, 51 percent of Americans said the Democratic party was more likely than the Republican party to make the right decisions about the war, while 38 percent felt the reverse.

Mr. Bush urged continued patience today, portraying Al Qaeda as a bitter enemy unlikely to be vanquished for decades. But he also acknowledged that the already tough fighting in Iraq could grow particularly bloody in August. And he said that the United States would withdraw from Iraq if the Iraqi government asked it to do so, though he hoped that would not happen.

The president strongly endorsed the latest version of the war spending bill, which is expected to pass both houses of Congress late today after months of wrangling and a failed effort by Democrats to include limits on how long American troops would remain in Iraq. Mr. Bush vetoed an earlier bill with those provisions.

“By voting for this bill, members of both parties can show our troops and the Iraqis and the enemy that our country will support our service men and women in harm’s way,” Mr. Bush said today, as the shouts of antiwar protesters outside the White House gates were occasionally heard in the Rose Garden.

Still, the current bill would finance the war only through September, when the American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, are due to provide a major progress report on the president’s troop-increase and security plan.

One reporter asked Mr. Bush today whether the insistence on the importance of September — a date the administration fixed in part to gain breathing space in the war debate — would have the same disadvantage as the timelines for withdrawal that Democrats had sought and Republicans had derided: giving America’s enemies in Iraq a target date, or a schedule, to use their violence for maximum effect.

Mr. Bush acknowledged, a bit awkwardly, that this might be so.

“It’s going to make — it could make August a tough month,” he said. “What they’re going to try to do is kill as many innocent people as they can, to try to influence the debate here.”

But the September date was General Petraeus’s idea, he said, and it was proper to defer to commanders on such matters.

Mr. Bush noted more than once that his troop-increase plan would not be complete until mid-June. When asked about a newly reported resurgence of sectarian violence in Iraq, he said that those reports were a mere “snapshot” of the situation.

He repeatedly emphasized the need for the Iraqi government to take a larger role — one of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group panel led by James Baker, the former secretary of state, and the former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton. When the report was issued in December, it met with a decidedly mixed reaction from the administration.

The panel called for a shift in the American role away from combat and toward training and supporting Iraqi military and police units, as well as a gradual reduction in the number of American troops in the country.

“The Iraqi government needs to show real progress in return for America’s continued support and sacrifice,” he said. “The Iraqi Study Group recommended that we hold the Iraqi government to the series of benchmarks for improved security, political reconciliation and governance that the Iraqis have set for themselves.”

He also spoke positively of the group’s report at two other points, mentioning its calls for embedding American troops in Iraqi units, for maintaining sufficient force in the country to assure Iraq’s territorial integrity, and for keeping special forces in Iraq that can concentrate on fighting Al Qaeda.

In recent weeks, Mr. Bush has returned to emphasizing Al Qaeda as the chief threat in Iraq, over the sectarian violence that has riven the country.

When a reporter asked him whether, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he would have believed that years later Osama bin Laden would still be on the loose, Bush appeared a bit frustrated, shifted his gears and sought to personalize the threat.

“It’s a danger to your children, Jim,” he told one reporter, and said to another, “They are a threat to your children, David.”

Mr. Bush said that a victory in Iraq meant the establishment of a stable, democratic government able to help the United States fight terrorists. “One of the things that appealed to me about the Baker-Hamilton is that it will provide a kind of a long-term basis” for that kind of success, he said. But first of all, he said, Baghdad must be stabilized.

    Bush Wants Tougher Sanctions on Iran, NYT, 24.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/washington/24cnd-prexy.html?hp

Bush: Iraq at Center of Terror Fight

May 23, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:26 p.m. ET
The New York Times

NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) -- President Bush portrayed the Iraq war as a battle between the U.S. and al-Qaida on Wednesday and shared nuggets of intelligence to contend Osama bin Laden was setting up a terrorist cell in Iraq to strike targets in America.

Bush, who faces a public weary of war and is at odds with Democrats in Congress over funding troops, said that while the Sept. 11 attacks occurred in 2001, Americans still face a major threat from terrorists.

''In the minds of al-Qaida leaders, 9/11 was just a down payment on violence yet to come,'' Bush said during a commencement speech at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in which he defended his decision to order a troop buildup in Iraq. ''It is tempting to believe that the calm here at home after 9/11 means that the danger to our country has passed.''

''Here in America, we are living in the eye of a storm,'' he said. ''All around us, dangerous winds are swirling and these winds could reach our shores at any moment.''

Critics of the war insist that U.S. troops are in the middle of fights among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

''As global terror threats remain very real, President Bush is sinking more money and sending more troops to referee Iraq's civil war, when those precious resources would be better spent in finishing the mission left unaccomplished in Afghanistan,'' said Brian Katulis, a national security expert at the Center for American Progress think tank.

The White House has repeatedly said the U.S. and its allies will be successful when the Iraqis can sustain, govern and defend themselves, yet Bush used his speech to stress the threat from al-Qaida activities in Iraq.

''Hear the words of Osama bin Laden: He calls the struggle in Iraq a `war of destiny,''' Bush said. ''He proclaimed `The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever.'''

Much of the intelligence information Bush cited in his speech described terrorism plots already revealed. But he declassified information to flesh out details and highlight U.S. successes in foiling planned attacks orchestrated by bin Laden, the al-Qaida boss.

''Victory in Iraq is important for Osama bin Laden, and victory in Iraq is vital for the United States of America,'' Bush told the graduating class seated in a stadium under bright sunshine along the Thames River.

Bush said intelligence showed that in January 2005, bin Laden tasked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, his senior operative in Iraq, to organize a terrorist cell and use Iraq as a staging ground for attacking the United States.

This information expanded on a classified bulletin the Homeland Security Department issued in March 2005. The bulletin, which warned that bin Laden had enlisted al-Zarqawi to plan potential strikes in the United States, was described at the time as credible but not specific. It did not prompt the administration to raise its national terror alert level.

Bush said that in the spring of 2005, bin Laden also instructed Hamza Rabia, a senior operative, to brief al-Zarqawi on an al-Qaida plan to attack sites outside Iraq.

''Our intelligence community reports that a senior al-Qaida leader, Abu Faraj al-Libi, went further and suggested that bin Laden actually send Rabia, himself, to Iraq to help plan external operations,'' Bush said. ''Abu Faraj later speculated that if this effort proved successful, al-Qaida might one day prepare the majority of its external operations from Iraq.''

Bush said another suspected al-Qaida operative, Ali Salih al-Mari, was training in poisoning at a camp in Afghanistan and dispatched to the United States before the Sept. 11 attacks to ''serve as a sleeper agent ready for follow-on attacks.''

Bush said bin Laden attempted to send a new commander to Iraq, an Iraqi-born terrorist named Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi. Al-Iraqi, who was al-Qaida's top commander in Afghanistan, was captured last year and recently transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

Democrats and other critics have accused Bush of selectively declassifying intelligence, including portions of a sensitive National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, to justify the U.S.-led invasion on grounds that Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. That assertion proved false.

Rand Beers, national security adviser to John Kerry's 2004 Democratic presidential campaign, contended Wednesday that the Bush administration was releasing intelligence to buttress the argument that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism while a number of intelligence sources say the most recent attacks or planned attacks against the U.S. and its allies have originated in Pakistan instead.

''Bin Laden is using Iraq to kill and demonize the United States while remaining secure and planning further operations in Pakistan,'' Beers said.

Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said new details about the plots were declassified because the intelligence community had tracked all leads from the information and the players were either dead or in U.S. custody.

In May 2005, al-Libi was captured. Several months later, in December 2005, al-Rabia was killed in Pakistan. In June of 2006, al-Zarqawi was killed in Iraq in a U.S. airstrike.

Actually, making the new information public earlier might have allowed Bush to use it to his political advantage, Townsend said. ''This is kind of late to be able to bring this to the game,'' she said, adding that intelligence officials needed time to exploit the information.

------

On the Net:

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

    Bush: Iraq at Center of Terror Fight, NYT, 23.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Terrorism.html

Bush Presses Allies on Afghanistan

May 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:01 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush said Monday he will press U.S. allies to do more to share the burden and the risks in fighting in Afghanistan as casualties rise with a resurgent Taliban.

''In order for NATO to be effective it has to transform itself into an organization that actually meets the threats that free nations face,'' Bush said as he stood alongside NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

De Hoop agreed, saying, ''Afghanistan is still one of the front lines in our fight against terrorism.''

Bush is banking on NATO support to help quell the violence in Afghanistan. Afghanistan's surging violence, NATO's role in Kosovo and U.S. plans for a missile defense system in Europe all on Monday's agenda.

''I pledged to the secretary general we'll work with our NATO allies to convince them that they must share more of the burden and must all share the risks in meeting our goal,'' Bush said.

''We also appreciate the fact that Afghanistan requires more than military action. We support a long-term comprehensive strategy to help strengthen Afghanistan's democratic institutions and help create the economic opportunity that will help this young democracy survive and thrive,'' he added.

In Afghanistan, more than 1,600 people have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to U.S., NATO and Afghan figures. The mounting civilian death toll has fueled distrust of international forces and U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai.

''That front line should not become a fault line,'' de Hoop Scheffer said, adding, ''I know it's tough from time to time.''

Bush said he and the NATO chief also talked about further NATO expansion and missile defense, particularly the importance of reassuring Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country has nothing to fear from a system to intercept and destroy incoming ballistic missiles.

''I will continue to reach out to Russia,'' Bush said. He said it was central for the Russians to ''understand that this missile shield is not directed at them, but, in fact, directed at other nations that could conceivably affect the peace of Europe.''

Both the president and the NATO chief decried the loss of civilian life in Afghanistan.

But, said de Hoop Scheffer, ''We are not in the same moral category as our opponents -- as the Taliban in Afghanistan. We don't behead people. We don't burn schools. We don't kill teachers. We don't plant roadside bombs. We don't send in suicide bombers.''

Said Bush: ''The Taliban likes to surround themselves with innocent civilians. They don't mind using human shields because they devalue human life....We do not have sympathy for the tactics of the Taliban.''

    Bush Presses Allies on Afghanistan, NYT, 21.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

Bush Stands by Gonzales

May 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:38 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush on Monday called an upcoming Senate vote of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales ''pure political theater'' and stood by his embattled friend.

''He has done nothing wrong,'' Bush said during a news conference at his ranch.

The president rapped Senate Democrats preparing a no-confidence vote on the embattled attorney general by week's end and urged them to get back to legislative business.

''I frankly view what's taking place in Washington today as pure political theater,'' Bush said, sounding exasperated with the furor swirling around his longtime friend. ''I stand by Al Gonzales and I would hope that people would be more sober in how they address these important issues.''

Bush did not answer a question about whether he intends to keep Gonzales in office through the end of his presidency.

Meanwhile, Democrats were leading the way toward a no confidence vote on Gonzales, possibly at week's end.

''The president should understand that while he has confidence in Attorney General Gonzales, very few others do,'' Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., responded to Bush's comments. ''Congress has a right -- and even an obligation to express its views when things are this serious.''

Gonzales, who is headed to Europe this week, scrapped a meeting with his Swiss counterpart and shelved tentative plans for a tour and a meeting in Hungary. His cancellations also come days before his former White House liaison, Monica Goodling, was to testify about her role in the firings of U.S. attorneys last year.

Senate support for Gonzales is continuing to erode, with a fourth and fifth Republican calling for his resignation. On Sunday, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee predicted Gonzales would step down before senators go on record as having confidence in the attorney general, or not.

''I have a sense that before the vote is taken, that Attorney General Gonzales may step down,'' Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. said Sunday.

Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the attorney general's stops in Switzerland and Budapest, Hungary, were never set in stone. He said Gonzales leaves Tuesday for meetings in Munich as part of the G-8 summit there.

Roehrkasse said Gonzales had hoped to travel to the International Law Enforcement Academy in Budapest for a tour and a meeting that ultimately could not be scheduled. Similarly, Roehrkasse said Gonzales was too short on time to make it to Switzerland, and that no meeting there was ever confirmed.

A spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry said Washington called off the meeting, which was set for Wednesday.

''A first meeting was planned for Wednesday in Switzerland between Attorney General Gonzales and Justice Minister (Christoph) Blocher,'' said Sascha Hardegger, a spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry. ''It was recently canceled by the United States.''

Hardegger said the meeting was set up in response to a U.S. request ''in the context of Mr. Gonzales' participation in the G-8 justice ministers' meeting in Munich.''

Switzerland is not a member of the G-8 and Blocher will not attend the Munich meeting, Hardegger said. He downplayed the significance of the ''short, informal meeting'' with Gonzales, but would not say what they planned to speak about.

Hardegger declined to speculate on the reasons for the cancellation, but said it's possible Gonzales and Blocher could meet shortly after the G-8 meeting or at another future date.

(This version CORRECTS SUBS 12th graf to correct details from Gonzales' itinerary in Budapest.)

    Bush Stands by Gonzales, NYT, 21.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Gonzales.html

Bush Reaffirms Confidence in Iraqi PM

May 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:03 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush expressed confidence in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Monday despite growing frustration in Congress about his government.

And the top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, said Iraqi government efforts ''in the coming months will be critical to whether or not'' the country succeeds.

Bush, at his ranch in Texas, called al-Maliki to mark the one-year anniversary of his inauguration.

''The president reaffirmed his confidence in the prime minister and noted the courage that he has shown in a challenging and difficult year,'' Bush spokesman Tony Fratto said.

The leaders discussed political progress in Iraq, and al-Maliki gave Bush updates on oil-sharing legislation and efforts to reform the country's constitution.

Fratto said it is hard to pin down when the Iraqi government will deliver on its promises of political reconciliation.

''Obviously we want the Iraqis and the Iraqi parliament to move as quickly as possible,'' Fratto said. ''Progress on advancing these initiatives is not moving as quickly as anyone wants -- and I think that includes Prime Minister Maliki and many members of parliament.''

A week ago, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said senators in both parties are frustrated with the Iraqi government.

''I don't know what their problem is, but this country has made an enormous investment in giving the Iraqis a chance to have a normal government after all of these years of Saddam Hussein and his atrocities,'' said McConnell, R-Ky.

''And there's a growing sense of bipartisan frustration in the Senate over the lack of progress on the political side of the Iraqi government,'' he said. ''I think benchmarks will be a part of the final package that we get to the president for signature on the troop funding bill.''

The White House is negotiating with Democratic leaders in Congress over a war-spending bill for Iraq. Bush vetoed the first version because it set timetables for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon on Monday released an open letter from Petraeus to the Iraqi people, in which he urged them to reject violence, turn in insurgents in their midst and work for reconciliation.

''We need your help if we are to quell the violence,'' he said in the letter. ''Deny the enemy shelter, report any information you may have regarding his whereabouts, and be proud of and support your nation's security forces.''

He asked them to understand that restrictions imposed on their freedom are designed to make their neighborhoods safer and promised that unpopular security barriers will come down as security improves.

''Now, more than ever, is the time for Iraqis to come together and embrace reconciliation over confrontation.'' he said. ''It is time to choose peace.''

On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Bush has a ''tin ear'' when it comes to Iraq and should compromise with majority Democrats on a spending bill with a timetable for U.S. troops to leave. Both sides hope to get a new bill to Bush before the Memorial Day weekend.

The White House and Congress failed to come up with a deal last week after exchanging offers and Bush's chief of staff said after a Capitol Hill meeting Friday that ''timelines for withdrawal are just not the right way to go.''

McConnell spoke of the need for legislation that would pass both the House and Senate, where Democrats hold a slimmer edge. He mentioned a proposal advanced by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and other Republicans that would set standards for the Iraqi government to meet and condition reconstruction funds on progress toward achieving the goals.

''It's what can pass the Senate,'' McConnell said.

To Pelosi, however, ''This is too little, too late. This would have been an appropriate measure maybe three or four years ago. But the accountability is very meager in the bill,'' she said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

    Bush Reaffirms Confidence in Iraqi PM, NYT, 21.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Editorial

Their Master’s Voice

May 19, 2007
The New York Times

In March 2004, the acting attorney general distrusted Alberto Gonzales so much that he wouldn’t meet with him at the White House without a witness. Eight months later, President Bush promoted Mr. Gonzales from White House counsel to attorney general, the top law enforcement job in the land. The president is still standing by his man, ignoring Mr. Gonzales’s efforts to mislead Congress, his disregard for the Constitution and his gross neglect of even basic bureaucratic duties.

It’s a familiar pattern: Mr. Bush sticks by his most trusted aides no matter how evident it is — even to the Republican Congressional chorus — that they are guilty of incompetence, bad judgment, malfeasance or all three. (George Tenet, the director of central intelligence; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; and the Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers spring to mind.)

Each time, we’re told Mr. Bush repays loyalty with loyalty. We’re told it’s a sign of character.

We don’t buy the explanation. The more persuasive answer is that Mr. Bush protects his embattled advisers because they are doing precisely what he told them to do.

Mr. Tenet was not off freelancing on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He delivered what the White House wanted: claims that sounded dire enough to herd Americans into war. (His recent self-serving insistence that he admires the president but was shocked at the lack of thought and planning behind the war comes too late.) Mr. Tenet put the party line and his own career above the good of the country, and for that, he was rewarded with a Medal of Freedom.

Mr. Rumsfeld wasn’t conducting a rogue operation when he planned the war in Iraq. He gave the president his victory on the cheap, which could be presented to Americans as sacrifice-free. When the plan literally exploded in the faces of an undermanned, poorly armored and badly led American force, Mr. Rumsfeld did Mr. Bush’s bidding by denying failure after failure. The president stuck by him until the 2006 campaign ended in the one condition that trumps loyalty in the Bush family playbook: losing an election.

The president also clung to his nomination of Ms. Miers to the Supreme Court long after there was a bipartisan consensus that she was unqualified. Now we know that there is powerful evidence that Ms. Miers helped to orchestrate the political purge of United States attorneys.

The more of these White House psychodramas we get to witness, the more obvious it is that Mr. Bush’s warm embrace is really a payoff to yes-men who didn’t challenge his orders or question ideology-driven policies. It is a cynical way to run the United States government. And, as Mr. Tenet’s recent book shows, it doesn’t even buy silence.

    Their Master’s Voice, NYT, 19.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/19/opinion/19sat1.html

White House Rejects Democrats’ Iraq Proposal

May 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:21 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic congressional leaders on Friday offered their first major concessions in a fight with President Bush over a spending bill for Iraq, but the White House turned them down.

In a closed-door meeting with Bush's top aides on Capitol Hill, Democrats said they'd strip billions of dollars in domestic spending out of a war spending that Bush opposed if the president would accept a timetable to pull combat troops out of Iraq. As part of the deal, Democrats said they would allow the president to waive compliance with a deadline for troop withdrawals.

But no agreement was struck.

''To say I was disappointed in the meeting is an understatement,'' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. ''I really did expect that the president would accept some accountability for what we're trying to accomplish here.''

White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, who rejected the deal, said any timetable on the war would undermine the nation's efforts in Iraq.

''Whether waivable or not, timelines send exactly the wrong signal to our adversaries, to our allies and, most importantly, to the troops in the field,'' said Bolten.

At stake is the more than $90 billion the president says is needed to cover the costs of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan through September. The Democratic-controlled Congress on May 1 sent Bush a bill that would have funded the war but also would have demanded that troops start coming home Oct. 1.

Bush swiftly rejected that bill. Unable to override his veto, Democrats have been trying to find a way to pass a new bill by Memorial Day that funds the troops but still challenges Bush's Iraq policy.

The Democrats' reluctance to drop a timetable on the war is not a surprise. Party leaders, particularly in the House, are under substantial pressure from members not to cede ground in opposing the war, which is deeply unpopular with voters.

But because the latest proposal would allow the president to waive the troop withdrawal deadlines, many House Democrats would likely oppose the measure as too weak and Speaker Nancy Pelosi would need GOP support to pass it.

Pelosi, D-Calif., said negotiations with the White House were not dead, but she and Reid made it clear they would proceed this weekend on their own in drafting a new bill they could be widely supported in Congress. The leaders said the plan remained to send Bush a bill by the Memorial Day recess.

''It is clear that the difference between the president and Democrats is accountability,'' Pelosi said. But ultimately, she later added, ''Our troops will be funded.''

Also attending the meeting on Capitol Hill was Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, and Rob Portman, the White House budget director, as well as Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Reps. Jerry Lewis and David Obey. Lewis, R-Calif., is the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee and Obey, D-Wis., is chairman.

The Democrats declined to say what their next bill will look like in light of Friday's meeting. But they insisted, as they have done for weeks, that nothing -- including a timetable on the war -- was off the table.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio accused Democrats of seeking ''an arbitrary surrender date'' and said the GOP has enough votes ''to sustain the president's veto on any bill'' along those lines.

Bolten echoed that, saying, ''the Democrats seem to be dug in on precisely the same approach'' that drew the president's earlier veto.

The White House chief of staff said Republicans had offered a proposal that was essentially what received 52 votes in the Senate this week. It would establish a series of standards for the Iraqi government to meet, and condition the flow of reconstruction funds on progress toward achieving the goals.

Bolton did not say so, but the legislation, advanced by Virginia Sen. John Warner and other Republicans, would have allowed Bush to override the proposal by ordering the funds to be spent regardless of how the Baghdad government performed.

    White House Rejects Democrats’ Iraq Proposal, NYT, 18.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html?hp

Bush Expects Iraq Spending Bill Compromise

May 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:26 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Thursday he's optimistic compromise will be reached with Congress on an Iraq spending bill.

''I think we'll get a deal. We'll work through something we can all live with,'' Bush said in a Rose Garden news conference with outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

For his part, Blair, the staunchest of U.S. allies on Iraq, predicted that Britain would continue to stand side by side with the United States after he leaves office. He said he did not regret his decision to join Bush in supporting the war in Iraq and ''I believe that we will remain a staunch and steadfast ally in the fight against terrorism.''

Blair, once enormously popular in his country, saw his popularity tumble largely over his alliance with Bush on Iraq.

The president praised Blair, calling him extremely effective as a leader and ''dogged'' when he gets on a subject. ''I appreciate the fact that he can see beyond the horizon. And that's the kind of leadership the world needs,'' Bush said.

Asked by a British reporter if Blair was the right person for Bush to be dealing with now, given that he will leave office on June 27, Bush said absolutely. ''You're trying to do a tap dance on his political grave,'' the president said.

Blair said he was proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder beside the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks: ''I admire him as a president and I regard him as a friend.''

Bush voiced optimism that he could reach a deal with Congress on a stalled $124.2 billion spending bill to help pay for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Congress and the White House have been at loggerheads over war spending since earlier this month when Bush vetoed the measure after the Democratic-controlled Congress added provisions for troop withdrawals to begin Oct. 1.

Bush said he had instructed Joshua Bolten, his chief of staff, to stay in close touch with congressional leaders. He said he agrees with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that time is of the essence. And he said he respected the desire of members to include benchmarks in the bill that the Iraqi government should meet.

''I'm optimistic we can do so,'' Bush said.

Blair, noting that he could hear anti-war demonstrators outside the White House, defended anew his decision to join the U.S. and go to war in Iraq -- even though it has proven unpopular in both countries.

Even if people disagree with remaining in Iraq until victorious, ''at least people understand that there is a battle we are fighting around the world today. ... You don't win those battles by being a fair weather friend to your ally.''

Blair had good words for Gordon Brown, Britain's Treasury chief, who was confirmed Thursday as the next leader of the Labour Party. Colleagues in the House of Commons overwhelmingly backed him as the only candidate to be the new prime minister.

''I wish him well, I believe he would make a great prime minister,'' Blair said.

Bush, however, acknowledged that he really didn't know Brown, although the two have met. ''I hope to help him in office the way Tony Blair helped me,'' Bush said.

''Will I miss working with Tony Blair? You bet. Can I work with the next guy? Of course,'' Bush said.

    Bush Expects Iraq Spending Bill Compromise, NYT, 17.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Blair.html

Detroit Council Urges Bush Impeachment

May 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:24 p.m. ET
The New York Times

DETROIT (AP) -- The Detroit City Council called for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, unanimously passing a resolution sponsored by a Democratic congressman's wife.

The nonbinding resolution, approved Wednesday, says Bush and Cheney conspired to defraud the United States by ''intentionally misleading Congress and the public regarding the threat from Iraq in order to justify the war.''

It was sponsored by Councilwoman Monica Conyers. Her husband, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, where any impeachment proceedings would start. He has said he does not intend to move forward with any impeachment effort.

Other cities nationwide have taken up resolutions calling for impeachment, notably San Francisco, and some state legislatures are considering them.

    Detroit Council Urges Bush Impeachment, NYT, 17.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Detroit-Impeachment-Vote.html

Bush Expresses Regret Over Wolfowitz

May 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:17 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Thursday seemed resigned to the possibility that World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz could lose his job over conflict-of-interest charges involving his girlfriend.

''I regret that it has come to this,'' Bush said, as the bank's 24-member board was set to resume deliberations on Wolfowitz's fate.

Wolfowitz and the Bush administration were seeking a face-saving deal with the board that would allow him to resign under his own terms and escape some blame for the furor involving his girlfriend's compensation.

Pressure on Wolfowitz to step down has grown since Monday's release of a bank panel report on his handling of the 2005 pay package of bank employee Shaha Riza.

Wolfowitz contends he acted in good faith.

Bush, who picked Wolfowitz for the job, said ''I admire Paul Wolfowitz ... I admire his focus on helping the poor.''

Bush said Wolfowitz has the bank's best interests at heart.

European members -- led by France, Germany and the Netherlands -- are pushing for Wolfowitz to resign. The White House, for the first time, suggested this week that it would be open to a change of leadership.

''It's a game that is still going on. What I understand from people close to the board is that they really want to make a decision on this case because it cannot continue like it is. It's really bad for the bank,'' said Kees-Jaap Ouwekerk, spokesman for Dutch Overseas Development Minister Bert Koenders.

Behind the scenes negotiations took place on Wednesday for an exit package for Wolfowitz, but they failed to produce a resolution. Wolfowitz and his attorney, Robert Bennett, have said repeatedly that Wolfowitz won't resign with a cloud of what they believe are unfair charges hanging over him.

The 185-nation World Bank, created in 1945 to rebuild Europe after World War II, now provides more than $20 billion a year for projects such as building dams and roads, bolstering education and fighting disease. The bank's centerpiece program today offers interest-free loans to the poorest countries.

By tradition, an American has run the bank, with the board's approval. A European heads the bank's sister agency, the International Monetary Fund.

The United States, the bank's biggest financial contributor, wants to keep that decades-old tradition intact.

Riza worked for the bank before Wolfowitz took over as president in June 2005. She was moved to the State Department to avoid a conflict of interest, but stayed on the bank's payroll.

Her salary went from close to $133,000 to $180,000. With subsequent raises, it eventually rose to $193,590.

The bank panel concluded that the salary increase Riza received ''at Mr. Wolfowitz's direction was in excess of the range'' allowed under bank rules.

The panel said Wolfowitz ''placed himself in a conflict of interest situation'' when he became involved in the terms and details of Riza's assignment and pay package and ''he should have withdrawn from any decision-making in the matter.''

Meanwhile, the German Ministry of Finance said Thursday that Wolfowitz was still expected to attend a meeting of finance officials from the Group of Eight nations in Potsdam on Friday and Saturday, which is supposed to set the agenda for next month's summit of G-8 leaders.

''We did not receive a cancellation,'' spokesman Torsten Albig said.

There were concerns that the flap over Wolfowitz would overshadow talks on the global economy, which is the main focus on the group. Besides the United States, the countries that make up the G-8 are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.

------

AP Writers Mike Corder contributed to this report from the Netherlands and Matt Moore from Frankfurt.

------

On the Net:

World Bank: http://www.worldbank.org/

    Bush Expresses Regret Over Wolfowitz, NYT, 17.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-World-Bank-Wolfowitz.html

Bush Opens Door to Wolfowitz’s Resigning

May 16, 2007
The New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, May 15 — The Bush administration, shifting strategy in the face of mounting opposition to Paul D. Wolfowitz, opened the door Tuesday to his resigning voluntarily as World Bank president if the bank board dropped its drive to declare him unfit to remain in office.

But the administration’s new approach — outlined in a telephone conference call between the Treasury Department in Washington and economic ministries in Japan, Canada and Europe — appeared to gain few immediate supporters, various officials said.

Indeed, bank officials said the board seemed determined on Tuesday evening to endorse the findings of a special committee that Mr. Wolfowitz broke bank rules, ethics and governance standards in arranging for, and concealing, a pay and promotion package for his companion, Shaha Ali Riza, in 2005.

The officials said the 52-page report of the committee, released Monday evening, had emboldened Mr. Wolfowitz’s critics on the board, and made it difficult for the board to avoid concluding that he could no longer lead the institution.

Late in the day on Tuesday, Mr. Wolfowitz made a personal and impassioned appeal to the bank board at a private meeting, seeking to stave off what some said was an inevitable rebuke.

According to a text made available by a supporter of Mr. Wolfowitz, he warned that a vote of no confidence in his leadership, tantamount to requesting his ouster, “has the potential to do greater long-term damage to the institution” than any conflict of interest he may have failed to avoid.

Declaring that he had been “held up to public ridicule” and “caricatured as a ‘boyfriend’ who used his position of power to help his ‘girlfriend,’ ” Mr. Wolfowitz said that “for the sake of the bank, and for your sake, this process has to be fair.”

He promised to change his management approach by relying less on advisers from the Bush administration, restructuring his office, delegating more to managers and placing “more trust in the staff,” according to the text.

“I implore each of you to be fair in making your decision, because your decision will not only affect my life, it will affect how this institution is viewed in the United States and the world,” he said. This was an apparent reference to criticism of the bank among American conservatives and fears of Congress cutting off financing for the bank.

European and American officials said that senior aides to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. held a telephone conference with their counterparts at the leading industrial nations, raising the idea of a two-track approach to Mr. Wolfowitz.

The first track, administration officials said, required the board to agree that while Mr. Wolfowitz had erred, so had others and that all had acted in good faith.

“The fact is that he made mistakes,” Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said of Mr. Wolfowitz as he presented this approach on Tuesday. “They are not, in our view, firing offenses.”

The second track would involve a discussion of “all options,” as Mr. Snow and others put it, on what to do about Mr. Wolfowitz’s future ability to lead the bank as a result of the deep antipathy he has engendered among the staff, the board, senior managers and finance ministries of major donor countries.

Mr. Snow, addressing this track, said that “at some point in the future, there are going to be conversations about the proper stewardship of the World Bank,” and that at that point, “all options are on the table.”

But there is so much distrust of the United States at the bank that some saw these and other comments as a feint designed to keep Mr. Wolfowitz in office.

“The odds of this flying are very, very low,” said a senior bank official. “It is too little, too late. It might have been possible a day or two ago, but not after he was found guilty as charged of a whole slew of violations.”

A senior European official briefed on the conversation with Mr. Paulson’s aides said that European and Canadian ministries found the American approach outlined in the conference call to be a tough sell.

“The general view from capitals, with the exception of the Japanese,” he said, “is that it is impossible to disentangle the charges of misconduct and corruption from the credibility of the bank, which is going around the world lecturing countries not to engage in misconduct and corruption.”

Nevertheless, the administration held out some hope on Tuesday evening that it could get its point of view across. There was a fear, some administration officials said, that the two-track approach would entail a long investigative process examining Mr. Wolfowitz’s leadership abilities, when in fact an inquiry could be finished quickly.

It appeared that the best the administration could hope for was the possibility of President Bush appealing personally to Prime Minister Tony Blair, with whom he is scheduled to meet at the White House on Wednesday, and to other elected leaders.

A factor that kept emotions high was the disclosure on Tuesday of documents that seemed to buttress the bank committee’s conclusion that Mr. Wolfowitz tried to keep the pay and promotion arrangement for Ms. Riza a secret.

According to one document, Mr. Wolfowitz had a bitter showdown with the bank’s personnel director, Xavier Coll, in March 2006 over Mr. Wolfowitz’s concern that word of the salary was leaking out to the press.

Mr. Coll recounted that Mr. Wolfowitz became “increasingly agitated” and said he was “tired of people” who were “attacking him.”

“You should tell your friends to stop it,” Mr. Wolfowitz added, using expletives and threatening retaliation, according to the memo.

Aside from the coarse language, the document seemed to demonstrate that Mr. Wolfowitz was aware six months after he arranged for Ms. Riza’s compensation that few people at the bank knew about it. This appeared to contradict his contention that it was well known at the bank and deemed appropriate.

    Bush Opens Door to Wolfowitz’s Resigning, NYT, 16.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/washington/16wolfowitz.html

Bush, Blair defend war in Iraq together

16.5.2007
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — Steadfast allies President Bush and Tony Blair on Thursday strongly defended their decision to go to war in Iraq and to remain there, despite rising opposition in both the United States and Britain and their own plunging approval ratings.

"This is a fight we cannot afford to lose," Blair said.

Standing side by side in the Rose Garden, the two leaders said they had no regrets about the decision, contending Iraq has become the main battleground in the war against global terrorism.

"It is an important part of protecting the United States," Bush said. "No matter how calm it may seem here in America, an enemy lurks, and they would like to strike, they would like to do harm to the American people."

Said the outgoing British prime minister: "The forces that we are fighting in Iraq — al-Qaeda on the one hand, Iranian-backed elements on the other — are the same forces we're fighting everywhere."

Bush said he's optimistic a compromise will be reached with Congress on an Iraq spending bill. "I think we'll get a deal. We'll work through something we can all live with," Bush said.

Congress and the White House have been at loggerheads over war spending since earlier this month, when Bush vetoed Iraq spending legislation after the Democratic-controlled Congress added provisions for troop withdrawals to begin Oct. 1.

Focusing on Iraq at what seemed certain to be their final White House meeting, Bush and Blair participated earlier Thursday in a secure video conference with U.S. and British officials in Baghdad for an update on security, economic and political issues.

The president took the prime minister to the Situation Room in the basement of the White House for the hour-long briefing from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and their British counterparts.

Blair, stepping down as prime minister on June 27, spent the night at the White House, a mark of the special relationship he has with Bush. Many believe that friendship tarnished the legacy of the once-popular British leader. Blair stayed in the Queen's Bedroom, used by Winston Churchill during the former British leader's frequent World War II-era visits to Washington.

Blair predicted that Britain would continue to stand side by side with the United States after he leaves office. "I believe that we will remain a staunch and steadfast ally in the fight against terrorism," he said.

Blair, once enormously popular in his country, saw his popularity tumble largely over his alliance with Bush on Iraq.

The president praised Blair, calling him extremely effective as a leader and "dogged" when he gets on a subject. "I appreciate the fact that he can see beyond the horizon. And that's the kind of leadership the world needs," Bush said.

Asked by a British reporter if Blair was the right person for Bush to be dealing with now, given that he will leave office on June 27, Bush said absolutely. He admonished the reporter for "trying to do a tap dance on this political grave" and said, "You don't understand how effective Blair is."

Blair said he was proud to stand shoulder to shoulder beside Bush since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks: "I admire him as a president and I regard him as a friend."

Bush voiced optimism that he could reach a deal with Congress on a stalled $124.2 billion spending bill to help pay for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The president said he had instructed Joshua Bolten, his chief of staff, to stay in close touch with congressional leaders. He said he agrees with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that time is of the essence. And he said he respected the desire of members to include benchmarks in the bill that the Iraqi government should meet.

Blair, noting that he could hear anti-war demonstrators outside the White House, defended anew his decision to join the U.S. and go to war in Iraq.

Even if people disagree with remaining in Iraq until victorious, "at least people understand that there is a battle we are fighting around the world today. ... You don't win those battles by being a fair weather friend to your ally."

Blair had good words for Gordon Brown, Britain's Treasury chief, who was confirmed Thursday as the next leader of the Labour Party. Colleagues in the House of Commons overwhelmingly backed him as the only candidate to be the new prime minister.

"I wish him well, I believe he would make a great prime minister," Blair said.

Bush, however, acknowledged that he really didn't know Brown, although the two have met. "I hope to help him in office the way Tony Blair helped me," Bush said.

"Will I miss working with Tony Blair? You bet. Can I work with the next guy? Of course," Bush said.

    Bush, Blair defend war in Iraq together, UT, 16.5.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-16-blair-bush-meeting_N.htm

Bush Nominee to Get Payment From Old Job

May 16, 2007
The New York Times
By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, May 15 — A senior lobbyist at the National Association of Manufacturers nominated by President Bush to lead the Consumer Product Safety Commission will receive a $150,000 departing payment from the association when he takes his new government job, which involves enforcing consumer laws against members of the association.

The lobbyist, Michael E. Baroody, wrote recently to the commission’s general counsel that the severance was an “extraordinary payment” under a federal ethics rule, requiring him to remove himself from agency matters involving the association for two years. Under the rule, a payment is “extraordinary” if an employer grants it after learning that the employee is being considered for a government position and it is not part of an established compensation or benefits program.

Mr. Baroody said in the letter that the payment would not prevent him from considering matters involving individual companies that are members of the manufacturers’ association, many of whom are defendants in agency proceedings over defective products or have other business before the commission. Nor would it preclude him from involvement with smaller trade groups like those representing makers of home appliances and children’s products that have alliances with the association.

As chairman of the commission, Mr. Baroody’s salary would be $154,600. With the severance payment and an additional lump sum of $44,571 for unused leave time, Mr. Baroody would receive $349,171 this year. That amount, which excludes Mr. Baroody’s pension and retirement payments, nearly matches the $344,607 salary that Mr. Baroody earned as the second-highest-paid executive at the association last year.

The nomination of Mr. Baroody, executive vice president at the association, has provoked heavy criticism from Democrats and consumer groups. He is the latest in a line of industry officials and lobbyists to be given senior jobs by Mr. Bush at federal safety agencies that oversee matters like workplace and mine safety and transportation as the administration has sought to roll back hundreds of regulations that businesses viewed as excessive.

As a major trade organization for the largest companies in the country, the National Association of Manufacturers often has issues before the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It recently prevailed on the agency, for instance, to relax the requirements for when companies must notify the agency about defective products. The White House, Mr. Baroody and the commission would not make available the letter that Mr. Baroody wrote describing the $150,000 payment. A copy was provided by a Democratic Congressional aide who found it in Mr. Baroody’s nomination file in the Senate.

A spokeswoman for the White House, Emily Lawrimore, said the administration was satisfied that Mr. Baroody “has taken the steps necessary to avoid any conflict of interest in the event he is confirmed.”

Ms. Lawrimore said Mr. Baroody’s letter had been approved by government ethics lawyers. “Mr. Baroody has proven leadership abilities and over three decades of experience with labor policy, manufacturing and safety issues,” Ms. Lawrimore said, “and we believe he will be a valuable advocate on behalf of American consumers.”

Experts in executive compensation said it was unusual for someone to be paid under a severance agreement for voluntarily leaving to take a top position at another organization.

“Severance agreements are usually a safety net for the employee,” said Don B. Lindner, head of the executive compensation practice at WorldatWork, a professional organization previously known as the American Compensation Association that provides training and certification for compensation and benefits professionals. “It would be unusual to have a severance agreement triggered by a person leaving on a voluntary and positive basis. It’s usually used for a job that has been eliminated or cut back, or a person that’s been asked to leave.”

Government ethics experts said people occasionally received a severance payment when they left the private sector for a government job, but it could be problematic when the person was going to a post whose mission was to regulate the former employer. Mr. Baroody’s nomination will be before the Senate Commerce Committee next week. He is opposed not only by consumer groups but also by trial lawyers, firefighters and pediatricians. They have highlighted what they say are repeated actions taken by Mr. Baroody and the association on behalf of companies that have made consumer products less safe.

Mr. Baroody “not only represented the interests of the nation’s manufacturing firms — often in direct opposition to the interest of consumers — but led efforts to weaken the C.P.S.C. and opposed numerous initiatives to protect children and the public from unsafe products,” said Dr. Jay E. Berkelhamer, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a letter opposing the nomination.

In recent years, Mr. Baroody has been involved in legislative efforts to limit the liability of makers of asbestos as companies have faced growing numbers of lawsuits from workers who say they have been exposed to the fire-retardant material. In 2000, he sent a letter on behalf of the association urging Gov. George Pataki of New York to veto legislation that required tobacco companies to make cigarettes that were less likely to cause fires. (The governor signed the measure.)

Hank Cox, a spokesman at the association who has known Mr. Baroody for many years, said Mr. Baroody’s letter opposing the New York legislation “has nothing to do with the efficacy of safe cigarettes” but was more generally opposed to the principle that the states could set safety standards, rather than one national standard.

Mr. Baroody and the association signed a severance agreement in January 2006, nearly a year before he was nominated. It was rewritten in January, after Mr. Baroody was identified in trade publications and Web sites as the leading candidate to head the commission. Neither the White House nor the association would reveal any details of the original or amended agreements.

Ms. Lawrimore, the White House spokeswoman, said the revisions had to do with “the timing of his service, not the amount of his severance.” She would not elaborate, saying, “It’s personal financial information, and we don’t normally discuss that.” In an e-mail message, Mr. Baroody declined to comment.

Mr. Baroody’s nomination has been delayed by Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida. Several Democratic senators, including John Kerry of Massachusetts, Barbara Boxer of California and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, have raised concerns about the nomination, and Mr. Nelson has said he will vote against it.

“He’s just not the person to have at the head of the organization responsible for the safety of products coming out,” Mr. Nelson said. “He’s represented a bunch of these companies that are making these products that will be very much in front of that body. That’s like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”

Other officials said they would not be surprised if Mr. Bush, as he has done for other nominees that Democrats have found objectionable, bypassed the Senate and appointed Mr. Baroody to the commission during a Congressional recess.

Since January, the agency, which enforces consumer product laws and is responsible for making sure that companies recall or fix products that have safety problems, has been paralyzed because of the failure of the White House to appoint a chairman. Its lack of a quorum has prevented the agency from writing rules or issuing civil penalties.

William Brock, a labor secretary in the Reagan administration who worked with Mr. Baroody in the Labor Department and when the two were senior officials at the Republican National Committee, said Mr. Baroody had been a vigorous regulator who helped adopt a number of workplace safety rules and beat back efforts by more conservative officials to trim affirmative action regulations.

“He has as much intellectual depth and integrity as anyone I’ve met in government over the decades,” Mr. Brock said.

    Bush Nominee to Get Payment From Old Job, NYT, 16.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/washington/16safety.html

Bush Picks General to Coordinate War Policy

May 16, 2007
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, May 15 — The White House said Tuesday that President Bush ended his lengthy search for a so-called war czar to carry out Iraq and Afghanistan policy by offering the job to an active duty three-star Army general who said in his interview that he had been skeptical of the troop buildup in Iraq.

Mr. Bush selected Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, currently the top operations officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He will retain his active military status and must be confirmed by the Senate, which approves new assignments for three- and four-star generals.

“We needed to get the right concept, the right man — or woman — and we have,” the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, who led the search, said in an interview on Tuesday evening.

If he is confirmed, General Lute would have the rank of assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser, and would report directly to the president. His job, which is part of a broader reorganization of the National Security Council staff responsible for Iraq and Afghanistan, would be to brief Mr. Bush every day on the two conflicts, and work with other government agencies — including the Pentagon and the State Department — to carry out policy.

In a written statement, Mr. Bush called General Lute “a tremendously accomplished military leader who understands war and government and knows how to get things done,” adding that he had “played an integral role in implementing combat operation plans in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Even before the White House had made the news public, war opponents were using the impending announcement to criticize the administration’s Iraq policy. Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, an advocacy group, issued a statement citing a remark General Lute made in an interview with the Financial Times in August 2005, in which he argued for significant troop reductions. “You simply have to back off and let the Iraqis step forward,” the general said at the time. “You have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq.”

A spokesman said General Lute was not available for comment on Tuesday evening. Mr. Hadley said the general had expressed his doubts, but that he now supports the strategy.

“He said to me when he interviewed for this position, ‘Now, you need to understand that I was skeptical of the surge,’ ” Mr. Hadley recalled, using the administration term for the troop buildup in Iraq. He said that General Lute, who helped to develop the strategy, had raised questions about whether “Iraqi security forces would step up and contribute what they were supposed to do,” and whether the Iraqi government was committed to political reconciliation and providing economic resources.

“We developed a strategy that we thought answered those questions,” Mr. Hadley said, adding, “He’s saying that he supports the strategy, very clearly supports the strategy.”

The White House has spent more than a month searching for a high-profile general to fill what Mr. Hadley described as an “implementation and execution manager” for the conflicts.

The idea for the position has proved controversial. Some critics have said that Mr. Hadley was abandoning responsibility for Iraq and Afghanistan, while others cautioned against putting a military person in what has been a civilian role. The job was also difficult to fill, as several retired generals said they were not interested.

On Tuesday, Mr. Hadley said that while he had spoken to a number of people about their interest and availability for the new position, no one had received a formal offer until General Lute met Monday with the president.

    Bush Picks General to Coordinate War Policy, NYT, 16.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/washington/16warczar.html

President Intervened in Dispute Over Eavesdropping

May 16, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, May 15 — President Bush intervened in March 2004 to avert a crisis over the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program after Attorney General John Ashcroft, Director Robert S. Mueller III of the F.B.I. and other senior Justice Department aides all threatened to resign, a former deputy attorney general testified Tuesday.

Mr. Bush quelled the revolt over the program’s legality by allowing it to continue without Justice Department approval, also directing department officials to take the necessary steps to bring it into compliance with the law, according to Congressional testimony by the former deputy attorney general, James B. Comey.

Although a conflict over the program had been disclosed in The New York Times, Mr. Comey provided a fuller account of the 48-hour drama, including, for the first time, Mr. Bush’s role, the threatened resignations and a race as Mr. Comey hurried to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital sickbed to intercept White House officials, who were pushing for approval of the N.S.A. program.

Describing the events as “the most difficult of my professional career,” Mr. Comey appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of its inquiry into the dismissal of federal prosecutors and the role of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. Several lawmakers wanted to examine Mr. Gonzales’s actions in the N.S.A. matter, when he was White House counsel, and cited them to buttress their case that he should resign.

Mr. Comey, the former No. 2 official in the Justice Department, said the crisis began when he refused to sign a presidential order reauthorizing the program, which allowed monitoring of international telephone calls and e-mail of people inside the United States who were suspected of having terrorist ties. He said he made his decision after the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, based on an extensive review, concluded that the program did not comply with the law. At the time, Mr. Comey was acting attorney general because Mr. Ashcroft had been hospitalized for emergency gall bladder surgery.

Mr. Comey would not describe the rationale for his refusal to approve the eavesdropping program, citing its classified nature. The N.S.A. program, which began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks and did not require court approval to listen in on the communications of Americans and others, provoked an outcry in Congress when it was disclosed in December 2005.

Mr. Comey said that on the evening of March 10, 2004, Mr. Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., then Mr. Bush’s chief of staff, tried to bypass him by secretly visiting Mr. Ashcroft. Mr. Ashcroft was extremely ill and disoriented, Mr. Comey said, and his wife had forbidden any visitors.

Mr. Comey said that when a top aide to Mr. Ashcroft alerted him about the pending visit, he ordered his driver to rush him to George Washington University Hospital with emergency lights flashing and a siren blaring, to intercept the pair. They were seeking his signature because authority for the program was to expire the next day.

Mr. Comey said he phoned Mr. Mueller, who agreed to meet him at the hospital. Once there, Mr. Comey said he “literally ran up the stairs.” At his request, Mr. Mueller ordered the F.B.I. agents on Mr. Ashcroft’s security detail not to evict Mr. Comey from the room if Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card objected to his presence.

Mr. Comey said he arrived first in the darkened room, in time to brief Mr. Ashcroft, who he said seemed barely conscious. Before Mr. Ashcroft became ill, Mr. Comey said the two men had talked and agreed that the program should not be renewed.

When the White House officials appeared minutes later, Mr. Gonzales began to explain to Mr. Ashcroft why they were there. Mr. Comey said Mr. Ashcroft rose weakly from his hospital bed, but in strong and unequivocal terms, refused to approve the eavesdropping program.

“I was angry,” Mr. Comey told the committee. “ I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself in a way that demonstrated a strength I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper.”

Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card quickly departed, but Mr. Comey said he soon got an angry phone call from Mr. Card, demanding that he come to the White House. Mr. Comey said he replied: “After what I just witnessed, I will not meet with you without a witness, and I intend that witness to be the solicitor general of the United States.”

Mr. Comey said he reached Theodore B. Olson, the solicitor general, at a dinner party. At the White House session, which included Mr. Olson, Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Comey and Mr. Card, the four officials discussed the impasse. Mr. Comey knew that other top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, wanted to continue the program.

Mr. Card expressed concern about mass resignations at the Justice Department, Mr. Comey said. He told the Senate panel that he prepared a letter of resignation and that David Ayres, Mr. Ashcroft’s chief of staff, asked him to delay delivering it so that Mr. Ashcroft could join him. Mr. Comey said Mr. Mueller was also prepared to quit.

The next morning, March 11, Mr. Comey went to the White House for a terrorism briefing. Afterward, he said Mr. Bush took him aside for a private 15-minute meeting in the president’s study, which Mr. Comey described as a “full exchange.”

At Mr. Comey’s urging, Mr. Bush also met with Mr. Mueller, who emerged to inform Mr. Comey that the president had authorized the changes in the program sought by the Justice Department.

“We had the president’s direction to do what we believed, what the Justice Department believed, was necessary to put this on a footing where we could certify to its legality,” Mr. Comey said. “And so we set out to do that and we did that.”

Mr. Comey said he signed the reauthorization in “two or three weeks.” It was unclear from his testimony what authority existed for the program while the changes were being made. Mr. Comey said he shelved his resignation plans that day when terrorists set off bombs on commuter trains in Madrid.

Mr. Comey left the Justice Department in August 2006, saying publicly that he had never intended to serve through the end of Mr. Bush’s second term. Privately, he has told friends that he grew weary of what he felt was increasing White House influence on the agency.

Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, deflected questions about Mr. Comey’s testimony, but defended the N.S.A. program. Mr. Snow also noted that the Justice Department placed the program under the supervision of a special intelligence court earlier this year, which department officials said placed the program on an even firmer legal footing.

“Jim Comey can talk about whatever reservations he may have had, but the fact is that there were strong protections in there,” Mr. Snow said. “This is a program that saved lives, that is vital for national security, and furthermore has been reformed in a bipartisan way that is in keeping with everybody.”

Spokesmen for Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Mueller, and the Justice Department declined to comment. Mr. Card did not respond to a reporter’s inquiries.

    President Intervened in Dispute Over Eavesdropping, NYT, 16.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/washington/16nsa.html?hp

White House Pushed Ashcroft on Wiretaps

May 15, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:34 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was so questionable that a top Justice Department official refused for a time to reauthorize it, sparking a battle with top White House officials at the bedside of an ailing attorney general, a Senate panel was told Tuesday.

Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that he refused to recertify the program because Attorney General John Ashcroft had reservations about its legality just before falling ill with pancreatitis in March 2004.

Comey, the acting attorney general during Ashcroft's absence, said then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card responded by trying to get Ashcroft to sign the recertification from his bed at George Washington University Hospital.

During that dramatic meeting, also attended by Comey, Ashcroft lifted his head off the pillow and appeared reluctant to sign the document, pointing out that Comey held the powers of the office.

Gonzales and Card then left the hospital room, Comey said.

''I was angry,'' Comey told the panel. ''I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man who did not have the powers of the attorney general.''

The hospital room confrontation had been previously reported, but this was the first time Comey has spoken about it publicly.

    White House Pushed Ashcroft on Wiretaps, NYT, 15.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Eavesdropping.html

Bush Calls for Work

for Higher Fuel Efficiency

May 15, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG and EDMUND L. ANDREWS

WASHINGTON, May 14 — President Bush announced on Monday that he had directed his administration to begin the long process of establishing higher fuel efficiency standards for new cars.

But officials said that it was unclear if at the end of that process Mr. Bush would take it upon himself to raise the gas mileage of the nation’s automobiles, which has not significantly increased in decades. And Mr. Bush, speaking in the Rose Garden on Monday afternoon, said nothing would be put into effect until the regulatory process was completed at the end of 2008, just weeks before the end of his term.

Environmental groups, which have long called for substantial increases in the government-mandated fuel standards, expressed skepticism that the administration would enact new standards without Congressional action, and dissatisfaction that Mr. Bush had not offered specifics. And Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and the chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, called the announcement “a stall tactic.”

Mr. Bush’s announcement came during a period of new headlines about resurgent gasoline prices, as well as international and domestic political pressure to control American emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning petroleum and other fossil fuels. It comes six weeks after the Supreme Court, rebuffing the administration’s arguments, ruled in favor of states that were seeking new federal controls on these emissions from automobiles.

The court found on April 2 that carbon dioxide, the principal heat-trapping gas, is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and must be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency unless the agency scientifically determines that it does not contribute to climate change or that action is not necessary. A growing scientific consensus holds that carbon dioxide emissions are a serious problem that ought to be addressed urgently.

The E.P.A. administrator, Stephen Johnson, said during a teleconference with reporters on Monday that the administration was not arguing otherwise. “We accept the Supreme Court’s decision,” Mr. Johnson said, hailing what he said was “the first regulatory step to craft a proposal to control greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles.”

Mr. Bush began the process with an executive order directing the E.P.A., the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture to explore regulatory options to enact a proposal he announced in his State of the Union address earlier, which set a goal of reducing the projected growth of oil consumption within 10 years to a level 20 percent lower than current forecasts. Officials have expressed frustration that Congress has not enacted his plan, based on efficiency standards as well as incentives for alternative fuels, which environmentalists have harshly criticized as insufficient.

Mr. Bush said on Monday that he still preferred Congressional action to executive action and that his officials would “work with Congress to pass the 20-in-10 bill.” He said he had directed his cabinet secretaries to complete the regulatory process by the end of 2008 and to “evaluate the benefits and costs before they put forth the new regulation.”

The president has opposed setting across-the-board standards of the kind that Congress imposed decades ago, preferring flexibility to account for vehicle size and safety specifications, said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman.

Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the majority leader, said in a statement that the Senate would move forward with its own proposals, which include raising average passenger car fuel standards to 35 miles per gallon over 10 years from 25 m.p.g.. But, he said of the president, “if he brings forward proposals that make legal, economic and environmental sense, we will work with him as we legislate.”

Mr. Johnson, of the E.P.A., said that if the administration moved forward with the new rules, they would go into effect by the end of 2008.

Officials said the review would also consider regulatory avenues toward increasing the production of alternative and renewable fuels to 35 billion gallons a year, which would be significantly above the current mandate.

Environmental advocates said that taking many months to propose new rules, receive public comment and issue them in final form was reasonable. But they said Monday’s announcement gave them no reason to abandon their doubts about the probable result.

“This really amounts to saying, ‘Trust us, we’re doing something,’ ” said David Doniger, policy director for the climate center of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which was a party to the Supreme Court case. “It’s a clever effort, maybe a half-clever effort, to slip out of a corner. We haven’t been promised any specific reduction in global warming pollution, or any specific increase in the efficiency in cars.”

He said the president’s directive seemed to limit the E.P.A.’s flexibility by requiring that it act with sister agencies, meaning, “they can only walk as fast as the slowest one of them.”

Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a public interest group, criticized the president’s plan for relying on his “20-in-10” proposal as a starting point because of its large reliance on alternative fuels, which “opens the door for coal-to-liquids based fuel, which has the potential to emit more than twice as much carbon dioxide as gasoline.”

She called on Congress to set standards legislatively.

Arguments in Mileage Lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO, May 14 — Lawyers representing California and 10 other states gave arguments here on Monday in a lawsuit intended to force the government to increase gas mileage requirements for minivans, pickups and sport utility vehicles.

The suit, filed in November, asks the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to force the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to conduct an environmental impact study of fuel efficiency standards announced in April 2006. Those rules, which require automakers to act by 2010, raised fuel efficiency requirements by a little over a mile per gallon.

Attorney General Jerry Brown of California said the rules failed to take into account how man-made pollution affected the environment, as well as ignored political instability in the Middle East and the development of newer, cleaner fuels.

“They didn’t consider global warming; they didn’t consider alternative technologies; therefore they didn’t do their job,” said Mr. Brown, standing on the steps of the courthouse. “It doesn’t make any sense from a science point of view or a homeland security point of view.”

Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said the department had no comment.

    Bush Calls for Work for Higher Fuel Efficiency, NYT, 15.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/us/15bush.html

White House Defends Wolfowitz

May 15, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:03 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration defended embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz on Tuesday, saying findings that he broke bank rules in arranging a hefty pay package for his girlfriend did not amount to a firing offense.

Wolfowitz, who maintain that he acted in good faith, is waging a vigorous fight to keep running the institution. He will try to defend himself before the bank's 24-member board late Tuesday. The board, whose proceedings are carried out behind closed doors, ultimately will decide what actions to take against him.

Board members have discussed a range of disciplinary options. It could fire Wolfowitz, ask him to resign, signal that it lacks confidence in his leadership or reprimand him. Board members have been leaning toward an expression of no confidence or other tough language that would make it difficult -- if not impossible -- for Wolfowitz to stay on.

At the White House, spokesman Tony Snow said he did not think Wolfowitz has done anything to warrant his resignation.

Snow said that President Bush continues to support Wolfowitz, who had served as the No. 2 official at the Pentagon and was an architect of the U.S.-led war in Iraq before taking over the bank nearly two years ago.

''What we've said is, yeah, he made mistakes,'' Snow said. ''That pretty much is obvious. On the other hand, it's not a firing offense.''

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson also said they don't think the facts merit Wolfowitz's dismissal.

''It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that you would want to see the dismissal of the World Bank president over,'' Rice said. ''I hope it will be resolved in a way that is true to what really happened there but also strengthens the bank, which is a really important institution,'' she added.

The controversy that has put Wolfowitz's job in jeopardy involves his handling of the 2005 compensation package for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, a bank employee.

A special bank panel, in a report released late Monday, concluded that Wolfowitz broke bank rules in his handling of the pay package. It said the board must consider whether Wolfowitz ''will be able to provide the leadership'' to ensure that the bank achieves its mission of fighting poverty around the world.

In a response, Wolfowitz said, ''It is highly unfair and unwarranted to now find that I engaged in a conflict of interest because I relied on the advice of the ethics committee as best I understood it.''

The special panel acknowledged that the informal advice provided by the bank's ethics committee ''was not a model of clarity.''

But it also said that Wolfowitz's involvement in the details of Riza's salary ''went beyond the informal advice'' given by the ethics committee and that he ''engaged in a de facto conflict of interest.''

Under Wolfowitz's contract as well as the code of conduct for board officials, he was required to avoid any conflict of interest, the report said.

Riza worked for the bank before Wolfowitz took over as president in June 2005. She was moved to the State Department to avoid a conflict of interest, but stayed on the bank's payroll. Her salary went from close to $133,000 to $180,000. With subsequent raises, it eventually rose to $193,590.

European members are pushing for Wolfowitz to resign. The United States is the bank's largest shareholder. Bush tapped Wolfowitz for the job, a move that was approved by the bank's board.

The White House's Snow said Wolfowitz has said that he is willing to sit down with members of the bank to ''try to figure out the proper way to serve the best interests of the institution.''

Snow rejected the notion that the White House might be trying to convey a message that although the administration supports Wolfowitz, it is concerned that his continued tenure could damage the institution.

''No, so we're not trying to send a sort of clever, wink-wink, nudge-nudge signal,'' Snow said. ''It is, obviously, a serious concern.''

Treasury Department spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin said, ''A clear reading of the facts in this report demonstrates that this was a unique situation, missteps occurred on all sides and communication may not have been clear enough.''

She added: ''the facts reveal that President Wolfowitz acted to find a pragmatic solution and to carry out the direction he received from the ethics committee.''

    White House Defends Wolfowitz, NYT, 15.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-World-Bank-Wolfowitz.html

Clinton Says Bush Governs 'For the Few'

May 13, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:07 a.m. ET
The New York Times

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized President Bush on Saturday as running a ''government of the few, for the few and by the few.''

''For six long years the hardworking families of our middle class have been invisible to this president,'' she said, promising to be a president who again sets goals for the country.

Democrats attending the Ohio state party's annual dinner gave a rousing cheer when the senator from New York asked, ''Are you ready to end the war in Iraq and restore America's reputation around the world?''

Only two Democrats since 1900 have won the presidency without carrying Ohio and no Republican has done so.

The state clinched re-election for Bush in 2004, but Democrats have new optimism that they can win the state that Clinton's husband, Bill, carried twice.

Democrats captured the Ohio governor's seat for the first time in 16 years last November and, in a backlash attributed in part to a state government investment scandal, seized three other statewide offices long held by Republicans.

The $150-per-plate dinner drew about 3,000 people and generated $550,000 after expenses for the party, the most money the dinner has ever raised, said Chris Redfern, the Ohio Democratic Party chairman.

Clinton, leading the Democratic field for president in national and Ohio polls, promised universal health care and said she would make college more affordable. She also said she would be more aggressive in developing alternative sources of energy and that her administration would hire more qualified people for government jobs.

Clinton came to Ohio from South Carolina where she gave the commencement address at historically black Claflin University earlier on Saturday.

She spoke of making college more affordable and gave a nod to Barack Obama, her Senate colleague and Democratic primary opponent, while drawing on the university's 1960s-era demonstrations.

''Think about the students from this university who braved tear gas and water hoses and beatings and bullets to protest the injustice of segregation and usher in a new era of equality and never lived to see the day of an African-American man running for president,'' Clinton told the crowd of around 4,000 at the college.

She said the class of 320 graduating students represented a minority who are able to afford and complete the college degrees they began pursuing.

''But what I'm finding is that so many students and their hardworking parents and families are balking at the cost of higher education,'' Clinton said. ''When they see the price tag their hearts sink.''

With fewer than half of the nation's students completing the degrees their start, government must play a larger role, Clinton said.

''We need to begin by making college more affordable and accessible,'' she said. ''I think we need to take on the student loan industry and send a clear message they will be held accountable for the way they treat and mistreat students and families.''

She is pushing a ''student borrower bill of rights'' that sets payments as a percentage of income and keeps fees and interest rates reasonable. ''I don't believe that you should be subjected to bait-and-switch programs where they tell you what it's going to be and then they change it on you,'' she said.

Associated Press Writer Jim Davenport in Orangeburg, S.C., contributed to this report.

    Clinton Says Bush Governs 'For the Few', NYT, 13.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Clinton-2008.html

Editorial

Mr. Bush Alone

May 11, 2007
The New York Times

The difference between mainstream hawks and mainstream doves on Iraq seems to have boiled down to two months, with House Democrats now demanding visible progress by July while moderate Republicans are willing to give White House policies until September, but no longer, to show results.

Then there is President Bush, who has yet to acknowledge the reality that Congressional Republicans and even administration officials like Defense Secretary Robert Gates now seem to tacitly accept. Three months into Mr. Bush’s troop escalation, there is no real security in Baghdad and no measurable progress toward reconciliation, while American public support for this folly has all but run out.

The really important question now facing Washington is the one Mr. Bush still refuses to address: how, while there is still some time left, to design an exit strategy that contains the chaos in Iraq and minimizes the damage to United States interests when American troops inevitably leave.

There was no shortage of reminders this week of how swiftly and thoroughly the political landscape has shifted against the war. Yesterday, the House voted to approve the next two months worth of war spending, linking further money to a progress report from the administration in July. On Tuesday, a delegation of Republican moderates went to the White House to warn Mr. Bush that they could not continue supporting his war beyond September unless conditions improved markedly.

As one participant, Representative Ray Lahood of Illinois, remarked later, “I don’t know if he’s gotten that kind of opinion before in such a frank and no-holds-barred way.” The session was all the more significant considering that less than two weeks had passed since the same Republican moderates voted to sustain Mr. Bush’s veto of a bill that set a March 2008 date for withdrawing American combat troops.

Yesterday brought Tony Blair’s announcement that he will step down as Britain’s prime minister next month. He chose to go out on a high note, after the formation of a new Northern Ireland government joining Sinn Fein with its fiercest Protestant foes. That is a historic achievement. But it cannot disguise the way Mr. Blair’s once boundless prospects and personal credibility imploded after he became Mr. Bush’s most articulate enabler on Iraq.

If Mr. Bush hopes to salvage anything from his 20 months left in office, and, more to the point, if he wants to play a constructive role in the accelerating Iraq endgame, he needs to understand how much has changed in this country, and how tragically little has changed in Iraq.

The American people are no longer willing to write blank checks of blood and treasure to an Iraqi government that has refused to stop rampaging Shiite militias, has failed to approve constitutional changes to bring estranged Sunni Arabs back into the political system, and has still not come up with a way to share oil revenues fairly. Now it wants to give itself a two-month summer vacation.

Mr. Bush needs to face up to this grim reality and abandon his fantasies of ultimate victory and vindication. Otherwise, he could find himself, and America’s best long-term interests, run over by a bipartisan rush toward the nearest exit.

    Mr. Bush Alone, NYT, 11.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/opinion/11fri1.html

Bush and Democrats in Accord on Trade Deals

May 11, 2007
The New York Times
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

WASHINGTON, May 10 — The Bush administration reached agreement on Thursday with the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats to attach environmental and worker protections in several pending trade accords, clearing the way for early passage of some pacts and improving prospects for others.

The unusual agreement, which came after weeks of negotiations, would guarantee workers the right to organize, ban child labor and prohibit forced labor in trading-partner countries. It would also require trading partners to enforce environmental laws already on their books and comply with several international environmental agreements.

While the understanding was a victory for Democrats, it also represented a shrewd compromise by the White House. The agreement is the first major bipartisan economic deal to emerge since Democrats took control of Congress in January. It has immediate importance for four countries — Colombia, Panama, Peru and South Korea — that are seeking to enter into trade pacts with the United States.

But officials in Washington predicted that the agreement’s effect would go beyond those countries and could be a template for all trade deals, including a possible worldwide accord.

Administration officials are hoping that the agreement will cause many Democrats to support future trade deals. They hope that enough Democrats will join with Republicans, who generally support such measures, to make passage of the agreements probable, if only narrowly.

The negotiations were led on the administration side by Susan C. Schwab, the top trade envoy, and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., and on the House side by Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

“I think today is a recognition of the results of the November election,” Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference. “It doesn’t mean that this paves the way for trade agreements where we have other obstacles. But where it comes down to labor standards and environment, this is enormous progress.”

Ms. Schwab said that the agreement would send a message to trading partners that the United States was prepared to provide new impetus to the faltering talks for a global trade accord.

Democrats have been pressing for worker, environmental and other protections on trade deals without success since President Bush took office in 2001. The absence of such protections has meant that when lawmakers passed measures that lowered trade barriers, they generally did so without the support of Democrats.

In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton was able to get only 40 percent of his fellow Democrats to endorse the North American Free Trade Agreement, and about 60 percent to support a global trade agreement. Since then, many Democrats have soured on measures to lower trade barriers.

The breakthrough came as the politically sensitive trade deficit jumped in March to $63.9 billion, or 10 percent more than February’s revised deficit of $57.9 billion, putting the imbalance at its highest level in six months.

The report, issued by the Census Bureau, followed a trend that economists have observed for months: even as growth slows in the United States, expanding economies abroad are creating a need for American exports. In March, exports totaled $126.2 billion, up $2.2 billion from February. Those gains were not enough to offset an $8.2 billion rise in imports, which totaled $190.1 billion.

Thursday’s compromise affects four trade deals pending before Congress, two of them signed and two with negotiations that are nearly complete. All four countries would have to accept the provisions agreed to with the Democrats, but trade officials said they expected no major problems.

Peru and Panama are considered most likely to win early Congressional approval. Colombia is more problematic, because Democrats are demanding that, besides the new measures, more protections be added to prevent violence against activists trying to organize workers.

The South Korea accord, if put in place, would lead to the largest amount of increased trade. But it is opposed in its current version by Democrats who want greater access to that country’s markets for American beef, automobiles and auto parts.

Spokesmen at the National Association of Manufacturers and other business groups hailed the understanding, but said they wanted to study its provisions before endorsing its details.

Democrats have been most wary of two administration trade priorities: concluding the global negotiations known as the Doha round, named after the city in Qatar where the talks began six years ago; and extending Mr. Bush’s power to negotiate trade deals on which Congress gets only an up-or-down vote.

This negotiating authority, known in Washington shorthand as fast track, has been vigorously opposed by Democrats, who say that they cannot imagine giving Mr. Bush open-ended negotiating authority.

But Mr. Rangel said he could imagine a limited extension of such negotiating authority if the Doha round talks looked as if they were shaping up to be a good deal for the United States.

Democrats representing the older industrial regions, where jobs have been lost because of imports of cheap textiles, shoes, machinery and other products made in Asia and Latin America, have generally been opposed to free trade deals.

But others in the party are more open to trade. This group tends to represent high-technology and financial services industries, which are eager to gain markets in fast-growing third world countries.

In addition, farmers have become proponents of trade deals now that a large share of farm products are being exported. But lawmakers from farm areas have been skeptical of the administration’s record in negotiating trade pacts, insisting that they will not support them unless Europe and India open their markets.

Ms. Schwab said the accord announced Thursday would help in her talks at the World Trade Organization aimed at reaching an agreement opening barriers for farm goods, industrial products and services. Those talks involve Brazil, India, the United States and the Europeans.

Ms. Pelosi announced the trade deal with an unusual array of Republican and Democratic lawmakers and administration members at her side, including Ms. Schwab and Secretary Paulson.

The compromise appeared to be a striking tableau at a time of bitter partisan battles in Congress and with the administration over Iraq, actions by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, budget issues, Social Security and Medicare.

What it seemed to show is that, on trade, a coalition of lawmakers from states that stand to gain more from increased exports than they lose from increased imports can come together if each side’s interests are accommodated.

Originally, the administration had opposed the labor standards, arguing that they would provide a backdoor attempt to change American labor laws. It envisioned trading partners suing to overthrow American curbs on union shops and teenage employment on farms and in summer jobs. These concerns appeared to fade in the face of prospects of not getting any trade deals through Congress this year.

In addition to the labor and environmental provisions, the pact would make it easier for generic drugs to be sold in foreign countries; preserve the right of the United States to bar foreign companies from running American ports; and ensure that foreign investors will not have more rights than American investors domestically. There are also promises to step up training of workers who lose their jobs because of imports.

China’s Trade Surplus Rises

BEIJING, Friday, May 11 (Reuters) — China posted a trade surplus of around $16.9 billion for April, Xinhua, the official news agency, reported Friday.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a surplus of $15.9 billion.

Exports in April were $97.4 billion, Xinhua said, while imports were about $80.5 billion.

    Bush and Democrats in Accord on Trade Deals, NYT, 11.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/business/11trade.html?hp

Bush Tours Town Wiped Away by Tornado

May 9, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:44 p.m. ET
The New York Times

GREENSBURG, Kan. (AP) -- Stepping through the rubble, President Bush got his first look Wednesday at what little is left of this farming town of 1,600 people after last week's killer tornado.

Starting a day's tour of the wreckage, Bush hovered in a helicopter over the town in southwest Kansas. He saw the flattened ruins from Friday night's storm that killed at least 11 people. It was the most punishing tornado to hit the United States in years.

On a short ride into town, Bush got a rundown of the damage and the recovery from city administrator Steve Hewitt and Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. She and the White House had a spat a day ago -- later settled -- over whether National Guard deployments to Iraq had hampered the government's ability to respond.

The president then took to the city's streets on foot to comfort a community now little more than a snarled mess of mud, wood, glass and wires. Roaring at up to 205 mph and spanning 1.7 miles, the twister destroyed an estimated 95 percent of the town, with almost every building gone, including churches, the city hall and the hospital.

Bush had already ordered emergency aid for the people, business and governments in the Greensburg area. His trip was about delivering something else -- presidential empathy.

The White House has sought a much more aggressive and engaged reaction to disasters since Hurricane Katrina, when a bungled response became a turning point in Bush's presidency.

''The response to this particular case was absolutely phenomenal,'' declared R. David Paulison, the Federal Emergency Management Agency director, en route to Kansas with Bush.

Bush stopped at a tractor dealership, where the building was gutted and the plows were mangled. It had been a major employer in town. He freely dished out hugs.

The surrounding neighborhood revealed a car stuck tail-first out of the top of a house. Trees were ripped of all limbs, looking like mere stakes in the ground. A spray-painted sign said politely: ''Please pardon our mess.''

The president ambled down the road to a house with no roof, almost slipping as he picked his way across a chunk of metal on the lawn. He briefly grabbed a chain saw, ripping it into action for the cameras and other media that accompanied him.

''How are you all?'' Bush said as he moved among residents.

Greensburg has been known for its friendly charm, right down to the old-fashioned soda fountain at the drug store. The town's proud claim to fame is the Big Well, considered the largest in the world to be dug by hand. Now the fountain is gone, the well buried in debris.

Despite the tragedy, emergency officials know the death toll could have been much worse. An emergency warning about 20 minutes before the tornado hit helped people scramble to safety.

This is the third time in three months that Bush has played the role of national healer.

He comforted survivors of tornadoes that ripped through Alabama and Georgia in March, and offered words of hope at Virginia Tech after a gunman killed 32 people and himself in April.

    Bush Tours Town Wiped Away by Tornado, NYT, 9.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

President muddles his dates in welcoming Queen

Tuesday May 8, 2007
Guardian
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington


On a morning that should by rights have been frozen in time as a moment of pure pageantry, with military marching bands, pipers trucked out in tricorn hats and powdered wigs, and visiting royalty, one can count on George Bush.
The president yesterday once again demonstrated his gift for the gaffe, injecting an unintended sense of levity into the White House welcome for the Queen.

In his speech on the south lawn of the White House, he noted that the Queen had made repeated visits to the US during her reign, including celebrations to mark the country's 200th anniversary. "The American people are proud to welcome Your Majesty back to the United States, a nation you've come to know very well," Bush said. "After all, you've dined with 10 US presidents. You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 - in 1976."

As the laughter rippled through the crowd of 7,000 invited guests corralled behind red, white and blue bunting, Mr Bush tried to make light of his slip.

He shot a quick look at the Queen, and said: "You gave me a look that only a mother could give a child."

But by then, Mr Bush's discomfort with the pageantry that a royal visit entails was an open secret. His wife, Laura Bush, told ABC television yesterday morning that she and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, had to use all their persuasive powers to coax him into a white tie for the state banquet scheduled later yesterday.

It was to be the first white-tie event of his administration. "I don't know how thrilled he was about this - but, of course, when you're hosting the Queen of England, of course you want to have it be white tie," Mrs Bush said. "This is the perfect occasion for it - and he was a very good sport."

However, that sense of sportsmanship was not very evident at the White House yesterday morning when Mr Bush appeared to treat the visit by the Queen like that of any world leader, launching into a boiler plate address on the war on terror.

He praised Britain's historic contributions such as the Magna Carta in equal measure to its contribution in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Today our two nations are defending liberty against tyranny and terror. We're resisting those who murder the innocent to advance a hateful ideology, whether they kill in New York or London or Kabul or Baghdad," he said.

Mr Bush went on to pay tribute to the monarch's personal contribution in the war on terror. "Your Majesty, I appreciate your leadership during these times of danger and decision," the president said. "You've spoken out against extremism and terror. You've encouraged religious tolerance and reconciliation. You have honored those returning from battle and comforted the families of the fallen."

It was impossible to see the Queen's reaction from beneath her black and white hat, but the tone of her brief comments were in sharp contrast to those from Mr Bush. "A state visit provides us with a brief opportunity to step back from our current preoccupations to reflect on the very essence of our relationship," the Queen said.

"It is the moment to take stock of our present friendship, rightly taking pleasure from its strengths while never taking these for granted. And it is the time to look forward, jointly renewing our commitment to a more prosperous, safer and freer world."

With a wave from the portico of the White House, the Queen and Mr Bush then retreated inside the White House for a lunch of baby sea bass followed by raspberry meringue, and chocolate sorbet. But the focus was really on the state banquet later. The White House reportedly has been agog with preparations for the event, at which some 134 invited guests will dine on gold-trimmed china, and hear a performance from the violin virtuoso, Itzhak Perlman.

Mrs Bush has been ebulliant about the prospect. For Mr Bush, however, it's a different story. He likes to dine on Tex-Mex food and be in bed by 10pm.

Yesterday morning's remark was not his first slip in front of the Queen. When she visited the White House in 1991 during his father's presidency, he said he was the black sheep of the Bush family. He then asked: "Who's yours?"

The Queen did not reply. That awkward moment may well have been weighing on his mind in the run-up to last night's encounter.

    President muddles his dates in welcoming Queen, G, 8.5.2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,,2074400,00.html

Bush and Queen Celebrate Common Values

May 7, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, May 7 — President Bush welcomed Queen Elizabeth II to the White House today with remarks that celebrated the values that have bound the United States and Britain across the Atlantic and across the centuries.

“Our two nations hold fundamental values in common,” Mr. Bush said. “We honor our traditions and our shared history. We recognize that the strongest societies respect the rights and dignity of the individual. We understand and accept the burdens of global leadership, and we have built our special relationship on the surest foundations: our deep and abiding love of liberty.”

“Today our two nations are defending liberty against tyranny and terror,” Mr. Bush said on the White House South Lawn amid Stars and Stripes and Union Jacks. “We’re resisting those who murder the innocent to advance a hateful ideology, whether they kill in New York or London or Kabul or Baghdad. American and British forces are staying on the offense against the extremists and terrorists.”

Queen Elizabeth, nearing the end of her fifth visit to the former colonies, said she and her husband, Prince Philip, were happy to be at the White House again.

“A state visit provides us with a brief opportunity to step back from our current preoccupations to reflect on the very essence of our relationship,” she said. “It gives us a chance to look back at how the stories of our two countries have been inextricably woven together. It is a moment to take stock of our present friendship, rightly taking pleasure from its strengths, while never taking these for granted. And it is a time to look forward, jointly renewing our commitment to a more prosperous, safer and freer world.”

On Tuesday, the queen is to visit the World War II memorial on the National Mall. (Coincidentally, the royal couple’s visit to the White House came on the 62nd anniversary of the German surrender that ended the war in Europe.)

Mr. Bush set a relaxed tone to the White House gathering, albeit unintentionally. “You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 — in 1976,” he said as laughter broke out. A moment later, Mr. Bush said the queen had flashed him a look “that only a mother could give a child.” That line brought more laughter.

The queen and Prince Philip are ending a trip that included a stop in Jamestown to mark the 400th anniversary of the colony’s founding and attendance at the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. This evening, they will be honored at a state dinner at the White House. Before that, they were to attend a garden party at the home of the British ambassador, David Manning.

“I particularly look forward in the next two days to seeing at first hand something of how the cutting edge of science and technology can take us to the next phases of discovery and exploration in human endeavor,” the queen said, alluding to her plans to visit the space agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center on Tuesday.

On Tuesday evening, the royal couple is to dine with President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush at the British Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in the final event of what could be their final visit to the United States. The Queen has just turned 81, while her husband will be 86 next month.

    Bush and Queen Celebrate Common Values, NYT, 7.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/washington/07cnd-queen.html?hp

Bush nearly places Queen Elizabeth in 18th century

Mon May 7, 2007
12:25PM EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, no stranger to the occasional verbal misstep, nearly placed Queen Elizabeth II in the 18th century on Monday in welcoming her to the White House on a state visit.

Britain's queen and Prince Philip were treated to a formal arrival ceremony on the White House South Lawn, complete with a marching fife-and-drum corps.

Trumpets heralded the arrival of the dignitaries. The U.S. Air Force Band played national anthems before 7,000 invited guests on a sunny spring day.

Both Bush and the queen addressed the crowd as the royal family approached the end of a six-day U.S. visit that included ceremonies marking the 400th anniversary of the British settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, and the Kentucky Derby.

Bush noted the queen's long history of dealing with successive American governments, just barely stopping himself before dating her to 1776, the year the 13 British colonies declared their independence from Britain.

Elizabeth has occupied the British throne for 55 years and is 81.

"The American people are proud to welcome your majesty back to the United States, a nation you've come to know very well. After all you've dined with 10 U.S. presidents. You've helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 -- in 1976," Bush said.

Bush looked at the queen sheepishly. She peered back at him from beneath her black and white hat.

"She gave me a look that only a mother could give a child," Bush said as the crowd burst into laughter.

Taking the podium, the queen quickly swung into her prepared speech, hailing the closeness of U.S.-British relations.

"It is the moment to take stock of our present friendship, rightly taking pleasure from its strengths while never taking these for granted," she said. "And it is the time to look forward, jointly renewing our commitment to a more prosperous, safer and freer world."

Bush and his wife, Laura, were to play host to the queen at both White House luncheon and a formal white-tie state dinner on Monday night.

    Bush nearly places Queen Elizabeth in 18th century, R, 7.5.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN0733397220070507

Bush Welcomes Queen Elizabeth II to White House

May 7, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:16 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With trumpet fanfare and a 21-gun salute, President Bush welcomed Queen Elizabeth II to the White House on Monday as thousands of invited guests crowded the South Lawn for a glimpse of the British monarch.

The audience laughed aloud at a verbal slip by Bush when he said the queen had dined with 10 U.S. presidents and had helped the United States ''celebrate its bicentennial in 17 ... .'' Bush caught himself and corrected the date to 1976.''

Bush joked that the queen just ''gave me a look that only a mother could give a child.''

In his remarks, Bush said the United States and Britain, allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, were standing together in the war against terrorism.

''Our work has been hard,'' the president said. ''The fruits of our work have been difficult for many to see. Yet our work remains the surest path to peace. Your majesty, I appreciate your leadership during these times of danger and decision.''

The queen noted that it was her fifth visit to the United States. ''It is a moment to take stock of our present friendship, rightly taking pleasure from its strengths while never taking these for granted,'' she said.

''And it is the time to look forward, jointly renewing our commitment to a more prosperous, safer and freer world,'' she added.

Bush and his wife, Laura, were waiting on the driveway on a near-perfect spring day as the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, arrived by limousine. The two couples briefly shook hands before moving on to the formal welcome.

A brilliantly blue sky framed the colorful ceremony where red, white and blue bunting was draped over the fencelines on the South Lawn. The United States Air Force Band led a grand military procession onto the lawn.

The ceremony included a parade by the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps dressed in black tricorn hats, white wigs, waistcoats, colonial coveralls, and red regimental coats. Their uniforms are patterned after those worn by the musicians of Gen. George Washington's Continental Army.

It was a day of high pomp and pageantry from a president known for his informality. It also was an uplifting event for a White House at a time when Bush's approval rate has dropped near all-time lows and he battles a Democratic Congress over funding for an unpopular Iraq war.

In honor of the queen, Bush agreed to host the first white-tie dinner of his presidency, with entertainment by violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman.

''We did sort of have to convince him a little bit'' to opt for the white-tie dinner, Mrs. Bush said of her and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's efforts to talk Bush into hosting the most formal dinner the White House can offer.

The White House said 7,000 guests were invited to the arrival ceremony. They included American and British delegations, British Embassy staff, state dinner guests, members of Congress, Cabinet members, White House staff and their guests, State Department staff, and students.

On Monday night, 134 guests will return in white tie and tails for the state dinner among 13 damask-clothed tables set with gold-trimmed ivory china and gilded silver candelabras.

''We're very excited to host Her Majesty,'' Mrs. Bush said Monday morning on ABC's ''Good Morning America.''

''We had the opportunity to be here the last time she was here for a state dinner (hosted by the first President Bush in 1991) ... and we're so thrilled to have the chance to host her and to show her the strong affection the American people have for the British,'' she said.

It will be the Bushes' fifth state dinner in six years, but the first in white tie. The White House said the president was happy to return hospitality to the queen, who hosted the Bushes at a white-tie state banquet in November 2003 during an official visit to Britain.

The visit to Washington comes at the tail end of a six-day trip, the Queen's fifth to the United States in 50 years but her first since 1991, when Bush's father was president. The royal couple arrived Sunday night at Andrews Air Force Base before spending the night at Blair House, the president's guest house.

In between the White House events Monday, the royal couple plan to attend a garden party at the British ambassador's residence.

On Tuesday, the queen will join Laura Bush in a tour of Children's National Medical Center. She also plans to plant a tree at the British ambassador's residence and visit NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the National World War II Memorial. On Tuesday night she's to have dinner with the Bushes at the British embassy before returning to London.

The royal couple kept a low profile Sunday, with no official events after attending the Kentucky Derby Saturday. They began their six-day trip to the United States in Virginia. The queen addressed the state's General Assembly and visited Jamestown, which is observing the 400th anniversary of the founding of the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.

    Bush Welcomes Queen Elizabeth II to White House, NYT, 7.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Royal-Visit.html?hp

Bush's approval rate falls to 28 percent: Newsweek

Sat May 5, 2007
Reuters
9:45PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's approval rating has fallen to 28 percent in a Newsweek Poll released on Saturday, an all-time low for Bush in that survey.

Nearly two out of three Americans -- 62 percent -- believe Bush's recent actions in Iraq show he is "stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes," Newsweek reported. Just 30 percent think Bush's execution of the Iraq war demonstrates he is "willing to take political risks" to do what's right.

Bush's unpopularity may also be casting a dark shadow over Republican chances for keeping the White House in 2008. Democratic front-runners lead potential Republican contenders in head-to-head match-ups across the board, the poll suggests.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama fares best against the lead Republicans so far in the race. Obama bested Republican front-runner and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani by 50 percent to 43 percent among registered voters who responded to the poll.

Obama topped Arizona Sen. John McCain by 52 percent to 39 percent and defeated former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by 58 percent to 29 percent, Newsweek reported.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner among Democratic voters, topped Giuliani by 49 percent to 46 percent, beat out McCain 50 percent to 44 percent and outdistanced Romney 57 percent to 35 percent, the poll found.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards topped Giuliani by 6 points, McCain by 10 and Romney by 37 points in the poll.

The poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International on Wednesday and Thursday, interviewed 1,001 adults 18 and older. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

    Bush's approval rate falls to 28 percent: Newsweek, R, 5.5.2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0527787120070506

Bush Warns of Vetoes Over Abortion Issue

May 4, 2007
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON, May 3 — President Bush told Congressional leaders Thursday that he would veto any legislation that weakened federal policies or laws on abortion.

In a two-page letter sent to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Mr. Bush said his veto threat would apply to any measures that “allow taxpayer dollars to be used for the destruction of human life.”

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life, characterized the president’s message as “drawing a bright line.”

A statement from the group noted that many appropriations bills that Congress will take up include provisions to limit federal financing of abortion and that abortion rights groups have been urging Democratic leaders in Congress to change.

For example, a provision is under consideration for a foreign appropriations bill that would end a ban on discussing abortion in family planning clinics in developing nations.

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi, said she interpreted the president’s letter as a broader threat “to veto any pro-choice legislation.”

“Instead of trying to work with Congress he’s trying to threaten Congress, and that won’t work,” he said.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said: “The president felt that it was important to remind Congress of his position on these issues. It’s not about vetoing, it’s about standing firm on his core beliefs.”

    Bush Warns of Vetoes Over Abortion Issue, NYT, 4.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/washington/04veto.html

Editorial

Spying on Americans

May 2, 2007
The New York Times

For more than five years, President Bush authorized government spying on phone calls and e-mail to and from the United States without warrants. He rejected offers from Congress to update the electronic eavesdropping law, and stonewalled every attempt to investigate his spying program.

Suddenly, Mr. Bush is in a hurry. He has submitted a bill that would enact enormous, and enormously dangerous, changes to the 1978 law on eavesdropping. It would undermine the fundamental constitutional principle — over which there can be no negotiation or compromise — that the government must seek an individual warrant before spying on an American or someone living here legally.

To heighten the false urgency, the Bush administration will present this issue, as it has before, as a choice between catching terrorists before they act or blinding the intelligence agencies. But the administration has never offered evidence that the 1978 law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, hampered intelligence gathering after the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Bush simply said the law did not apply to him.

The director of national intelligence, Michael McConnell, said yesterday that the evidence of what is wrong with FISA was too secret to share with all Americans. That’s an all-too-familiar dodge. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who is familiar with the president’s spying program, has said that it could have been conducted legally. She even offered some sensible changes for FISA, but the administration and the Republican majority in the last Congress buried her bill.

Mr. Bush’s motivations for submitting this bill now seem obvious. The courts have rejected his claim that 9/11 gave him virtually unchecked powers, and he faces a Democratic majority in Congress that is willing to exercise its oversight responsibilities. That, presumably, is why his bill grants immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated in five years of illegal eavesdropping. It also strips the power to hear claims against the spying program from all courts except the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which meets in secret.

According to the administration, the bill contains “long overdue” FISA modifications to account for changes in technology. The only example it offered was that an e-mail sent from one foreign country to another that happened to go through a computer in the United States might otherwise be missed. But Senator Feinstein had already included this fix in the bill Mr. Bush rejected.

Moreover, FISA has been updated dozens of times in the last 29 years. In 2000, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, who ran the National Security Agency then, said it “does not require amendment to accommodate new communications technologies.” And since 9/11, FISA has had six major amendments.

The measure would not update FISA; it would gut it. It would allow the government to collect vast amounts of data at will from American citizens’ e-mail and phone calls. The Center for National Security Studies said it might even be read to permit video surveillance without a warrant.

This is a dishonest measure, dishonestly presented, and Congress should reject it. Before making any new laws, Congress has to get to the truth about Mr. Bush’s spying program. (When asked at a Senate hearing yesterday if Mr. Bush still claims to have the power to ignore FISA when he thinks it is necessary, Mr. McConnell refused to answer.)

With clear answers — rather than fearmongering and stonewalling — there can finally be a real debate about amending FISA. It’s not clear whether that can happen under this president. Mr. Bush long ago lost all credibility in the area where this law lies: at the fulcrum of the balance between national security and civil liberties.

    Spying on Americans, NYT, 2.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/opinion/02wed1.html

Bush Vetoes Bill Tying Iraq Funds to Exit

May 2, 2007
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, May 1 — President Bush vetoed a $124 billion war spending bill on Tuesday, setting up a second round in his long battle with Congressional Democrats who are determined to use the financing measure to force the White House to shift course in Iraq.

The veto was only the second of Mr. Bush’s presidency. In a six-minute televised speech from the White House, the president called the measure a “prescription for chaos and confusion,” and said, as he has for weeks, that he could not sign it because it contained timetables for troop withdrawal.

“Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure, and that would be irresponsible,” Mr. Bush said. He said the measure would “impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat” by forcing them to “take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.”

The veto added new punctuation to a major war powers clash between Democrats in Congress — buoyed what they regard as a mandate in last November’s elections and seeking to force an end to the fighting in Iraq — and a president working to defy what he regards as an incursion on his authority as commander in chief.

Democrats concede they do not have enough votes to override the veto. But, speaking in the Capitol shortly after Mr. Bush’s remarks, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, and the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said they would not be deterred from pushing the president as hard as they could to bring the troops home.

“If the president thinks by vetoing this bill he will stop us from working to change the direction of the war in Iraq, he is mistaken,” Mr. Reid said. He added, “Now he has an obligation to explain his plan to responsibly end this war.”

The fight has been brewing for nearly three months, ever since Mr. Bush sent Congress his request for emergency financing for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, including money to support his troop buildup. The next chapter begins Wednesday, when Congressional leaders are expected to meet Mr. Bush at the White House to open negotiations on a new bill. They are expected to look for ways to preserve the benchmarks for Iraqi progress that were included in the initial bill while eliminating the timetables for troop withdrawal that Mr. Bush has emphatically rejected.

Several Republican leaders said Tuesday that they were likely to support such benchmarks, and White House aides said Tuesday that Mr. Bush, who has supported goals and benchmarks for the Iraqi government, might back such a measure — but only if the benchmarks are nonbinding.

Mr. Bush issued the veto from the Oval Office at about 5:30 p.m., using a pen given to him by the father of a fallen marine. It came just hours after Democrats had themselves staged an unusual signing ceremony in the Capitol, timed to coincide with the four-year anniversary of the so-called Mission Accomplished speech, when Mr. Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended.

Mr. Bush spent much of the day in Tampa, Fla., at MacDill Air Force Base, headquarters of the United States Central Command, which coordinates Iraq operations. While he did not directly address the Iraq spending bill there, he warned that an early exit could turn Iraq into “a cauldron of chaos.”

Even as the political stagecraft played out on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue — and in Florida — on Tuesday, there were signs that Republicans and Democrats might be able to compromise on establishing benchmarks for the Iraqi government to show progress. But it remained an open question whether broad agreement was possible within Congress, much less with the White House, about whether to insist on consequences if those benchmarks were not met.

“There are a number of Republicans who do think that some kind of benchmarks, properly crafted, would actually be helpful,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader.

Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip, did not reject the concept of establishing benchmarks but said any hard-and-fast timetables or deadlines would be resisted. “Our members will not accept restraint on the military,” Mr. Blunt said.

Financing for the troops is likely to run out by June. With the Democrats still wrestling over what approach to take, some are discussing passing two bills, one to provide short-term financing for the troops, the other to deal with questions of Iraq policy. Throughout the day, Democrats lined up to deliver floor speeches observing the fourth anniversary of the president’s speech on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. At the front of the House chamber, Democrats positioned a blown-up photograph of Mr. Bush standing on the carrier deck on May 1, 2003.

Aides to the president were openly angry about the reminders, and the Democrats’ unusual legislative signing ceremony.

“It’s a trumped-up political stunt,” Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary, told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One. Others grumbled privately that Congress had sent plenty of bills to Mr. Bush without such pomp and circumstance.

“We’ve got the lights, we’ve got the characters, we’ve got the action for some fine political theater in the House of Representatives today,” said Representative Lynn A. Westmoreland, Republican of Georgia. “It’s time for the majority to take off their costumes and exit stage left. We owe it to our nation and our troops to see the ending of this story.”

In Tampa, Mr. Bush made his case for the spending bill without ever specifically mentioning it. After huddling with American military commanders, including Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, Mr. Bush addressed a conference of representatives from some of the roughly 90 countries that the United States considers allies in the global campaign against terrorism.

“Failure in Iraq should be unacceptable to the civilized world,” Mr. Bush said. “The risks are enormous.” He added that there were “signs of hope” even though the troop buildup was in its early stages.

The veto, announced by Mr. Bush at 6:10 p.m., just before the network news broadcasts began, was quickly seized on by Democratic groups.

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, a group financed, in part, through labor union money, presented a television advertisement criticizing the White House and Congressional Republicans. The group also planned a series of rallies across the country. In the Capitol, several Democrats and Republicans said they were eager to find common ground on the Iraq spending bill and bring an end to the bitter fight.

“Unfortunately, people are getting locked down in their respective positions,” said Senator Olympia Snowe, Republican of Maine. “The White House wants to have open-ended latitude on how to conduct a war, but I don’t think that is simply an option at this point.”

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

    Bush Vetoes Bill Tying Iraq Funds to Exit, NYT, 2.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/washington/02policy.html?hp

Bush: Iraq Timeline Could Cause 'Chaos'

May 1, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:10 p.m. ET
The New York Times

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AP) -- Moving toward a veto of a war spending bill, President Bush said Tuesday that Democrats who made the legislation a showdown over withdrawing U.S. troops could turn Iraq into a ''cauldron of chaos'' with their approach.

''Success in Iraq is critical to the security of free people everywhere,'' Bush said at the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, including Iraq.

The Democratic-led Congress was holding a ceremony Tuesday afternoon to send the bill to the president, and he planned to veto it soon thereafter, possibly upon his return to from Florida.

The White House said Bush would veto the bill on his return to the White House and then go before television cameras at 6:10 p.m. EDT, just before the evening news shows, to make a statement.

On Wednesday, Bush is scheduled to meet at the White House with bipartisan congressional leaders, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to begin discussing follow-up spending legislation.

Reid accused Bush of putting American troops ''in the middle of a civil war'' in Iraq, according to prepared remarks that he planned to deliver during the Tuesday ceremony.

''After more than four years of a failed policy, it's time for Iraq to take responsibility for its future,'' Reid said. ''Today we renew our call to President Bush: There is still time to listen. There is still time to sign this bill and change course in Iraq.''

Without enough votes to override Bush's veto, Democrats are considering revisions to the bill that will fund the troop but not give the president a blank check. A likely option is demanding the Iraqi government meet benchmarks for progress.

But less clear is what consequences the Iraqis would face if they failed to meet the standards. Democrats want to pull out U.S. troops if the Iraqis fall behind, but such a measure would trigger a second veto. Some Republicans say they would support tying benchmarks to the more than $5 billion provided to Iraq in foreign aid, but nothing that would tie the hands of military commanders.

''House Republicans will oppose any bill that includes provisions that undermine our troops and their mission, whether it's benchmarks for failure, arbitrary readiness standards, or a timetable for American surrender,'' said Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Republican Whip Roy Blunt said he thinks the rank-and-file GOP will agree. ''Our members will not accept restraint on the military,'' said Blunt, R-Mo.

The president did not explicitly mention the war funding legislation. But he made clear indirectly how he feels about its requirement that troops begin to be withdrawn by Oct. 1, and defending his policy of not only keeping troops in Iraq, but increasing their numbers.

Bush said that pulling the American presence from Baghdad before Iraqis are capable of defending themselves would have disastrous results -- giving al-Qaida terrorists a safe haven from which to operate and an inspiration for new recruits and new attacks.

''Withdrawal would have increased the probability that coalition troops would be forced to return to Iraq one day and confront an enemy that is even more dangerous,'' he said in remarks to representatives from countries participating in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. ''Failure in Iraq should be unacceptable to the civilized world.''

Bush's appearance came exactly four years after his speech on an aircraft carrier decorated with a huge ''Mission Accomplished'' banner. In that address, a frequent target of Democrats seeking to ridicule the president, he declared that the Iraq front in the global fight against terrorism had been successfully completed.

''Major combat operations in Iraq have ended,'' the president said from the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, just weeks after the war began. ''In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.''

The White House has argued that Bush was only talking about the initial toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime, and that he never meant to imply that all fighting was over in Iraq.

At the time, Bush's approval rating was 63 percent, with the public's disapproval at 34 percent.

Four years later, with over 3,300 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and the country gripped by unrelenting violence and political uncertainty, only 35 percent of the public approves of the job the president is doing, while 62 percent disapprove, according to an April 2-4 poll from AP-Ipsos.

White House press secretary Dana Perino accused Democrats of using U.S. troops as pawns in political games by waiting to send the funding bill to the president on the anniversary.

''It's a trumped-up political stunt that is the height of cynicism,'' she said.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker acknowledged Tuesday that there ''is something of an al-Qaida surge going on'' in Iraq, with the group using suicide car bombs as its principle weapons, but he said that doesn't mean the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to secure isn't working.

''We're just fighting at a number of levels here against a number of different enemies,'' Crocker told reporters during a videoconference from Baghdad.

    Bush: Iraq Timeline Could Cause 'Chaos', NYT, 1.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Bush Asks Florida Graduates to Back Immigration Change

April 29, 2007
The New York Times
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

MIAMI, April 28 — President Bush used a speech to mostly Hispanic graduates of Miami Dade College on Saturday to press for an overhaul of immigration law, calling for changes that “resolve the status of those who are already here without amnesty, and without animosity.”

Mr. Bush urged the 1,500 students, many of whom were born in other countries, to join the national debate on immigration policy, saying they “see every day the values of hard work and family and faith that immigrants bring” and so should make their voices heard.

Nearly 80 percent of graduates at the college’s campus in Kendall, where Mr. Bush spoke, are Hispanic; many are Cuban-American. Mr. Bush got a standing ovation and fervent applause, even as hundreds of protesters waved signs along the perimeter of the suburban campus opposing the war and calling for the president’s impeachment.

Mr. Bush’s younger brother, former Gov. Jeb Bush, came to hear him speak, along with Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, and several Cuban-American members of the state’s Congressional delegation.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Bush discussed immigration in his weekly radio address, calling on Congress to reach agreement on the “critical challenge” of improving immigration laws. Administration officials estimate that 12 million illegal immigrants are in the United States, and that the number has been growing by an average of 400,000 a year.

Mr. Bush is trying to bring both parties together on immigration legislation, even as he is fighting with Democrats over Iraq. He wants to create a temporary worker program and a way for some illegal immigrants already here to legalize their status, while stepping up border patrol.

“We need a system where our laws are respected,” Mr. Bush told the graduates. “We need a system that meets the legitimate needs of our economy. And we need a system that treats people with dignity and helps newcomers assimilate into our society.

“We must address all elements of this problem together, or none of them will be solved at all. And we must do it in a way that learns from the mistakes that caused previous reforms to fail.”

Miami Dade is the largest community college in the nation, and only the second community college where a sitting president has given a commencement address. Christopher Miles, president of the student government association at the Kendall campus, told Mr. Bush the school was nicknamed “Democracy’s College,” and said more than half the graduates were the first in their families to enter higher education.

Though Mr. Bush received the warmest of welcomes, some faculty members wore green and white ribbons on their robes to advocate an end to the war.

Before Mr. Bush spoke, the names of every nation that the graduates hailed from were announced, with Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua and Venezuela drawing some of the heartiest cheers.

As he has often done when visiting Miami, Mr. Bush criticized Cuba, where he said “the opportunity to participate in an open debate does not exist.” He also alluded to Fidel Castro’s recent illness, saying the day is nearing when “the light of liberty will shine” on Cuba.

“The reign of every tyrant comes to an end,” Mr. Bush said.

    Bush Asks Florida Graduates to Back Immigration Change, NYT, 29.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/washington/29bush.html

A Saudi Prince Tied to Bush Is Sounding Off-Key

April 29, 2007
The New York Times
By HELENE COOPER and JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, April 28 — No foreign diplomat has been closer or had more access to President Bush, his family and his administration than the magnetic and fabulously wealthy Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia.

Prince Bandar has mentored Mr. Bush and his father through three wars and the broader campaign against terrorism, reliably delivering — sometimes in the Oval Office — his nation’s support for crucial Middle East initiatives dependent on the regional legitimacy the Saudis could bring, as well as timely warnings of Saudi regional priorities that might put it into apparent conflict with the United States. Even after his 22-year term as Saudi ambassador ended in 2005, he still seemed the insider’s insider. But now, current and former Bush administration officials are wondering if the longtime reliance on him has begun to outlive its usefulness.

Bush administration officials have been scratching their heads over steps taken by Prince Bandar’s uncle, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, that have surprised them by going against the American playbook, after receiving assurances to the contrary from Prince Bandar during secret trips he made to Washington.

For instance, in February, King Abdullah effectively torpedoed plans by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a high-profile peace summit meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, by brokering a power-sharing agreement with Mr. Abbas’s Fatah and Hamas that did not require Hamas to recognize Israel or forswear violence. The Americans had believed, after discussions with Prince Bandar, that the Saudis were on board with the strategy of isolating Hamas.

American officials also believed, again after speaking with Prince Bandar, that the Saudis might agree to direct engagement with Israel as part of a broad American plan to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. King Abdullah countermanded that plan.

Most bitingly, during a speech before Arab heads of state in Riyadh three weeks ago, the king condemned the American invasion of Iraq as “an illegal foreign occupation.” The Bush administration, caught off guard, was infuriated, and administration officials have found Prince Bandar hard to reach since.

Since the Iraq war and the attendant plummeting of America’s image in the Muslim world, King Abdullah has been striving to set a more independent and less pro-American course, American and Arab officials said. And that has steered America’s relationship with its staunchest Arab ally into uncharted waters. Prince Bandar, they say, may no longer be able to serve as an unerring beacon of Saudi intent.

“The problem is that Bandar has been pursuing a policy that was music to the ears of the Bush administration, but was not what King Abdullah had in mind at all,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel who is now head of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Of course it is ultimately the king — and not the prince — who makes the final call on policy. More than a dozen associates of Prince Bandar, including personal friends and Saudi officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that if his counsel has led to the recent misunderstandings, it is due to his longtime penchant for leaving room in his dispatches for friends to hear what they want to hear. That approach, they said, is catching up to the prince as new tensions emerge between the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Mr. Bandar, son of one of the powerful seven sons born to the favorite wife of Saudi Arabia’s founding king, “needs to personally regroup and figure out how to put Humpty Dumpty together again,” one associate said.

Robert Jordan, a former Bush administration ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said the Saudis’ mixed signals have come at a time when King Abdullah — who has ruled the country since 1995 but became king only in 2005 after the death of his brother, Fahd — has said he does not want to go down in history as Mr. Bush’s Arab Tony Blair. “I think he feels the need as a kind of emerging leader of the Arab world right now to maintain a distance,” he said.

Mr. Jordan said that although the United States and Saudi Arabia “have different views on how to get there,” the countries still share the same long-term goals for the region and remain at heart strong allies.

An administration spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, said none of the current issues threatened the relationship. “We may have differences on issues now and then,” he said, “but we remain close allies.”

Or, as Saleh al-Kallab, a former minister of information in Jordan, put it, “The relationship between the United States and the Arab regimes is like a Catholic marriage where you can have no divorce.”

But there can be separation. And several associates of Prince Bandar acknowledge that he feels caught between the opposing pressure of the king and that of his close friends in the Bush administration. It is a relationship that Prince Bandar has fostered with great care and attention to detail over the years, making himself practically indispensable to Mr. Bush, his family and his aides.

A few nights after he resigned his post as secretary of state two years ago, Colin L. Powell answered a ring at his front door. Standing outside was Prince Bandar, then Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, with a 1995 Jaguar. Mr. Powell’s wife, Alma, had once mentioned that she missed their 1995 Jaguar, which she and her husband had traded in. Prince Bandar had filed that information away, and presented the Powells that night with an identical, 10-year-old model. The Powells kept the car — a gift that the State Department said was legal — but recently traded it away.

The move was classic Bandar, who has been referred to as Bandar Bush, attending birthday celebrations, sending notes in times of personal crisis and entertaining the Bushes or top administration officials at sumptuous dinner parties at Prince Bandar’s opulent homes in McLean, Va., and Aspen, Colo.

He has invited top officials to pizza and movies out at a mall in suburban Virginia — and then rented out the movie theater (candy served chair-side, in a wagon) and the local Pizza Hut so he and his guests could enjoy themselves in solitude. He is said to feel a strong sense of loyalty toward Mr. Bush’s father dating to the Persian Gulf war, which transferred to the son, whom he counseled about international diplomacy during Mr. Bush’s first campaign for president.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, as the United States learned that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi and focused on the strict Wahhabi school of Islam that informed them and their leader and fellow Saudi, Osama bin Laden, Prince Bandar took a public role in assuring the Americans that his nation would cooperate in investigating and combating anti-American terrorism. He also helped arrange for more than a hundred members of the bin Laden family to be flown out of the United States.

Even since he left the Saudi ambassador’s post in Washington and returned to Saudi Arabia two years ago, Prince Bandar has continued his long courtship, over decades, of the Bush family and Vice President Dick Cheney, flying into Washington for unofficial meetings at the White House. He cruises in without consulting the Saudi Embassy in Washington, where miffed officials have sometimes said they had no idea that he was in town — a perceived slight that contributed to the resignation of his cousin Prince Turki al-Faisal as ambassador to the United States last year. He has been succeeded by Adel al-Jubeir, who is said to have strong support from the king.

Prince Turki was never able to match the role of Prince Bandar, whom the president, vice president and other officials regularly consult on every major Middle East initiative — from the approach to Iran to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to Iraq. Prince Bandar played a crucial role in securing the use of the Prince Sultan Air Base at Al Kharj, roughly 70 miles outside Riyadh, in the attacks led by the United States against Afghanistan and Iraq, despite chafing within his government.

He helped in the negotiations that led to Libya giving up its weapons programs, a victory for Mr. Bush. He pledged to protect the world economy from oil shocks after the invasion, the White House said in 2004, but he denied a report, by the author Bob Woodward, that he had promised to stabilize oil prices in time for Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign.

The cause of the latest friction in the American-Saudi relationship began in 2003, before the invasion of Iraq. The Saudis agreed with the Bush view of Saddam Hussein as a threat, but voiced concern about post-invasion contingencies and the fate of the Sunni minority. When it became clear that the administration was committed to invading Iraq, Prince Bandar took a lead role in negotiations between the Bush administration and Saudi officials over securing bases and staging grounds.

But Saudi frustration has mounted over the past four years, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated. King Abdullah was angry that the Bush administration ignored his advice against de-Baathification and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. He became more frustrated as America’s image in the Muslim world deteriorated, because Saudi Arabia is viewed as a close American ally.

Tensions between King Abdullah and top Bush officials escalated further when Mr. Bush announced a new energy initiative to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil during his 2006 State of the Union address, and announced new initiatives in that direction this year.

Both American and Saudi officials say that King Abdullah clearly values — and uses — Prince Bandar’s close relationship with the White House. And that, associates said, will dictate what Prince Bandar can do.

“Don’t expect the man, because he happens to have an American background, not to play the game for his home team,” said William Simpson, Prince Bandar’s biographer, and a former classmate at the Royal Air Force College in England. “The home team is Saudi Arabia.”

Michael Slackman and Hassan M. Fattah contributed from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Steven R. Weisman from Washington.

    A Saudi Prince Tied to Bush Is Sounding Off-Key, NYT, 29.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/washington/29saudi.html?hp

Bush Vows to Veto Troop Withdrawal Plan

April 27, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:23 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CAMP DAVID, Md. (AP) -- President Bush warned Congress Friday that he will continue vetoing war spending bills as long as they contain a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

Speaking a day after the Democratic-controlled Congress approved legislation that requires that a troop drawdown begin by Oct. 1, Bush said -- as expected -- he will veto it because of that demand. He invited congressional leaders to come to the White House to discuss a new piece of legislation that does not include a timetable, and expressed hope a deal could be reached.

But he made clear that if Democrats insist on including timetables again, he will not hesitate to bring out his veto pen.

''If they want to try again that which I've said is unacceptable, of course I won't accept it,'' the president said during a news conference here with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. ''I hope it won't come to that.''

Passage of the Iraq spending legislation in both houses was not by big enough margins to override a presidential veto. So lawmakers and the White House immediately began talking about a follow-up bill.

Democratic leaders said they hoped to have one ready by June 1. Several Democratic officials have said the next measure likely will jettison the withdrawal timetable, but may include consequences if the Iraqi government does not meet certain benchmarks, such as expanding democratic participation and allocating oil resources.

Bush has set benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but has steadfastly opposed attaching any timeframe to them or any actions if they are not met.

Senate leaders said Friday that the bill should go to Bush early next week. The White House has not said whether Bush plans a quiet veto, or a public ceremony.

''I invited the leaders of the House and the Senate to come down soon after my veto so we can discuss a way forward,'' the president said. ''I'm optimistic we can get a bill, a good bill and a bill that satisfies all our objectives.''

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., urged Bush on Friday to ''carefully read this bill.''

''He will see it fully provides for our troops and gives them a strategy worthy of their sacrifices,'' Reid said. ''Failing to sign this bill would deny our troops the resources and strategy they need.''

The bill would provide $124.2 billion, more than $90 billion of which would go for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats added billions more for domestic programs, and while most of the debate focused on the troop withdrawal issue, some of that extra spending also has drawn Bush's criticism.

The legislation requires a troop withdrawal to begin July 1 if Bush cannot certify that the Iraqi government is making progress in disarming militias, reducing sectarian violence and forging political agreements, otherwise by Oct. 1.

While the beginning of a withdrawal is mandated, the balance of the pullback is merely advisory, to take place by April 1, 2008. Troops could remain after that date to conduct counterterrorism missions, protect U.S. facilities and personnel and train Iraqi security forces.

Abe was given the coveted invitation to the Camp David presidential retreat in part as a gesture of appreciation for Tokyo's commitment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Japan is the largest financial contributor, after the United States, for the rebuilding effort in Iraq, and is the third largest contributor in Afghanistan. Japanese defense forces have conducted refueling operations for the U.S. and coalition forces.

Abe expressed thanks ''for the noble sacrifice the United States is making'' in Iraq. On Thursday, the Japanese leader went to Arlington National Cemetery to pay respects to U.S. war dead, and visited injured troops at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

''The president expressed his strong determination to carry through for the task of Iraq's reconstruction,'' Abe said. ''And I told the president that Japan understands and supports U.S. efforts for the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq and Japan will carry on its own efforts to the same end.''

    Bush Vows to Veto Troop Withdrawal Plan, NYT, 28.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

Senate Passes Bill Seeking Iraq Exit; Veto Is Expected

April 27, 2007
By CARL HULSE
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, April 26 — The Senate on Thursday sent President Bush a $124 billion war spending measure that he has promised to veto, forcing Democrats to begin confronting the difficult question of what to do after the president acts.

Lawmakers and senior Democratic aides in the House and Senate acknowledge that there is no consensus among the party’s leadership on how to respond legislatively to the veto, with members of the House and Senate advocating competing options and some outside antiwar groups urging the Democrats to hold firm.

“It gives new meaning to the notion of a fluid process,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, after the Senate voted 51 to 46 over serious Republican objections to approve the emergency war measure. Two Republicans joined 48 Democrats and one independent in supporting the bill that would order troops to begin leaving Iraq by Oct. 1 at the latest; 45 Republicans and one independent opposed it.

The White House reaction was swift and harsh. “Eighty days after President Bush submitted his troop funding bill, the Senate has now joined the House in passing defeatist legislation that insists on a date for surrender, micromanages our commanders and generals in combat zones from 6,000 miles away, and adds billions of dollars in unrelated spending to the fighting on the ground,” said Dana Perino, the administration spokeswoman.

With the veto coming, some Democrats argue that the bill should simply be stripped of the timelines that have drawn Mr. Bush’s ire and sent back with the benchmarks and troop readiness rules intact. Others say Congress has made its antiwar statement and should now give the president the money without conditions.

Another wing, including House Democrats who are influential on military policy, prefers providing money for the troops for a few months while keeping pressure on the White House through other Pentagon-related legislation. Still others want to turn the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group into law.

Each alternative carries its own risk because Democratic leaders might not be able to muster the votes for passage of an alternate bill because a substantial bloc of Democrats opposes providing more money without some demand for a withdrawal.

One senior House aide summarized the problem succinctly: The president does not want the bill Democrats have passed, and Democrats might not be able to pass the bill the president wants.

But the Democratic leadership was not ready Thursday to contemplate the tough course ahead in public. With the Senate joining the House in approving the spending bill, Democrats delivered their most significant challenge to Mr. Bush’s Iraq policy since they took power in January after an election that many Democrats saw as a referendum on the president and his handling of the war.

“We have carried forth the wishes of the American people,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic leader.

Recent public opinion polls show the Democrats, with a push for a timeline for leaving Iraq, have struck a chord. A New York Times-CBS News poll found that those surveyed favored a timeline for withdrawal in 2008 by a wide margin, 64 percent to 32 percent. The poll of 1,052 people conducted April 20-24 also found public support for Congress to have the final say on troop levels in Iraq, 57 percent to 35 percent.

The poll also showed that those surveyed said 56 percent to 36 percent that they believed Congress should allow the war money to go forward without timelines once Mr. Bush vetoes the bill.

Senate Republicans called the measure a wasted exercise. Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the Republican whip, joined the White House in declaring the bill “dead before arrival.”

Others pointed to statements by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander in Iraq who met privately with lawmakers on Wednesday, that Al Qaeda is a primary source of violence in Iraq.

“They are attacking Americans,” said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas. “They are attacking Iraqis. They are trying to take over Iraq so they will have the capability to spread their terrorism throughout the world.”

Democrats said that Republicans were once again trying to tie the terrorism threat to what is predominantly a civil war in Iraq and that a withdrawal there would in fact allow American forces to concentrate better on terrorism.

“Redeploying our troops who are bogged down in the middle of an Iraqi civil war will enable us to refocus on our top national security: the global fight against Al Qaeda and its affiliates,” said Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.

“It is time to come home,” said Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey.

As they begin to fashion their post-veto strategy, Democrats say they will listen carefully to what Mr. Bush says in rejecting the bill, studying the nuances for negotiating room beyond his call for a spending measure with no restrictions.

Republican leaders in the House and Senate have recently indicated an openness to legislation that contains some form of benchmark to better chart the progress of the Iraqi government.

“There are a number of members of my conference who do think that benchmarks could be helpful, depending upon how they’re crafted,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader. “And that’ll be among the many items we discuss in moving forward and getting the money to the troops as quickly as possible.”

Mr. McConnell said he and Mr. Reid had already had preliminary talks about how to proceed after the veto.

Democrats said Mr. Bush was going to have to engage them as well.

“Maybe if he does veto this bill, maybe we’ll come to the conclusion that it’s time to change direction in this war, and he will sit and talk to us,” said Mr. Reid, who said a new bill might not be ready before June 1.

Another factor in the Democratic strategy is the influence of outside groups allied with the party against the war, some of which may be very reluctant to relent in the showdown with Mr. Bush. As soon as Mr. Bush vetoes the measure — perhaps as early as Tuesday, on the fourth anniversary of his 2003 “mission accomplished” appearance — a network of groups plans to spring into action with hundreds of rallies and news conferences around the country to bolster the Democrats.

And a poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that many backers of both Republicans and Democrats were not eager for compromise. The survey of 1,508 adults conducted April 18-22 found that 54 percent of those who support a timeline for withdrawal do not want Democrats to strike a deal; the same percentage of those against a timeline say Mr. Bush should follow through with his veto.

Add in the determination of Congress and the White House to shift blame for any delay in money for the armed forces, and it is clear that finding a final agreement will be a challenge. Officials predict that the next 10 days could prove critical.

“It ain’t going to be easy,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid. “But it will get done.”

Rice Balks at House Iraq Subpoena

OSLO, April 26 — A day after receiving a subpoena from Congress, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signaled here on Thursday that she would resist the order to appear before a House committee to answer questions about how the White House handled prewar intelligence about Iraq.

“This is an issue that has been answered and answered and answered,” she said at a news conference before a meeting of foreign ministers of NATO countries. “I am more than happy to answer them again — in a letter, because I think that is the way to continue this dialogue.”

Ms. Rice said she had worked in the White House, as national security adviser, during the prewar period and was therefore not legally obligated to testify before Congress.

    Senate Passes Bill Seeking Iraq Exit; Veto Is Expected, NYT, 27.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/washington/27cong.html?hp

Bush Names Overseas Broadcasting Head

April 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:47 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush tapped magazine publisher James K. Glassman on Wednesday to head the agency that directs U.S. overseas broadcasts, replacing a chairman whose tenure has been stormy.

Glassman, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington, will replace embattled chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, who resigned in January as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Bush had renominated Tomlinson to continue as chairman on Nov. 14, after Republicans lost control of both chambers of Congress. The nomination stalled in the Democratic-controlled Senate on the basis of a report by the State Department's inspector general, which had been released in August 2006. It said Tomlinson had misused government money for two years as chairman.

The U.S. attorney's office in Washington concluded that a criminal investigation was not warranted, according to the State Department report. The report said a civil investigation related to charges that Tomlinson had hired a friend as a contractor was pending.

Tomlinson disputed the allegations but finally told Bush he would continue only until the president could find a successor.

The 1994 law that created the board dictates that Tomlinson will serve until his replacement is confirmed by the Senate.

Glassman is publisher of The American magazine and was a syndicated financial columnist for The Washington Post from 2001 until 2004, according to a biography on AEI's Web site.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Radio and TV Marti, broadcasting initiatives in the Middle East and other nonmilitary U.S. broadcasting overseas.

If confirmed by the Senate, Glassman would serve the rest of Tomlinson's term, which expires Aug. 13, and a full three-year term ending in 2010.

------

On the Net:

Broadcasting Board of Governors: http://www.bbg.gov

The American Enterprise Institute: http://www.aei.org 

    Bush Names Overseas Broadcasting Head, NYT, 26.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Government-Broadcaster.html

Bush Said Sympathetic to Tillman Family

April 26, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:03 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush hopes someone is held responsible for the U.S. military's mishandling of information about the death of former football star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, the White House said Wednesday.

Bush did not learn about the unusual circumstances of the Army ranger's death until after the soldier's memorial service on May 3, 2004, said deputy press secretary Dana Perino.

Military officers at first said Tillman had died in an ambush, when in fact he was accidentally killed by fellow U.S. troops.

''I think that he feels deeply sorry for the family and all that they've gone through,'' Perino said. ''And he's pleased that the Department of Defense has taken it upon themselves to investigate it. And he hopes that people are held to account.''

Tillman's death received worldwide attention because he had walked away from a huge contract with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Pentagon initially misled his family about how he died on April 22, 2004, and relatives did not learn the truth for more than a month.

Bush asked for updates about Tuesday's hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which was held to learn whether, and when, top Defense officials and the White House knew that Tillman's death resulted from friendly fire.

''It's not clear -- people don't remember -- if he (Bush) heard it from media reports, or if he heard it from the Pentagon, but it was sometime after the funeral,'' Perino said.

In questioning what the White House knew about Tillman, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., cited a memo written by a top general seven days after Tillman's death, warning that it was ''highly possible'' the Army Ranger was killed by friendly fire and making clear that his warning should be conveyed to the president.

But Bush made no reference to the way Tillman died in a speech delivered two days after the memo was written in late April 2004.

The White House said there is no indication that Bush received the warning, which was conveyed from then-Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to Gen. John Abizaid, head of Central Command.

''There is no record of Gen. McChrystal's memo coming to the White House,'' Perino said.

Sen. John McCain, on his presidential campaign bus in New Hampshire, called the Army's actions in the Tillman case ''inexcusable and unconscionable.''

''I don't know if there was a cover-up,'' said McCain, R-Ariz. But he added: ''It was way, way too long before the whole story came out.''

''I think people should be held accountable, obviously, and we will continue to push that they be held accountable,'' he said.

    Bush Said Sympathetic to Tillman Family, NYT, 26.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Tillman.html

Bush and Cheney Chide Democrats on Iraq Deadline

April 25, 2007
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, April 24 — President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney aggressively challenged the motives of Congressional Democrats on Tuesday, as the House and Senate prepared to consider a war spending bill that would order troops to be withdrawn from Iraq beginning later this year.

In separate appearances that served as a prelude to an inevitable veto showdown, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney accused Democrats of political opportunism in forging ahead with a $124 billion measure that sets a timetable for leaving Iraq.

“Instead of fashioning a bill I could sign, the Democratic leaders chose to further delay funding our troops, and they chose to make a political statement,” Mr. Bush said Tuesday morning before leaving for New York. “That’s their right. But it is wrong for our troops and it’s wrong for our country.”

Mr. Cheney was even tougher as he spoke to reporters after a private weekly lunch for Republican senators. He lashed out at Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, who delivered stinging comments of his own on Monday, portraying Mr. Bush as being in denial about the war and saying Mr. Cheney had tarnished his own office.

“What’s most troubling about Senator Reid’s comments yesterday is his defeatism,” said Mr. Cheney. “And the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat. Maybe it is a political calculation.”

Democrats, bolstered by what they see as strong public sentiment for the administration to wind down the war, were confident they could win approval of the measure in the House and in the Senate on Thursday. While acknowledging that Mr. Bush would send the bill back, they said they were determined to force him to formally reject legislation that provides more money for the military than sought by the White House, but puts conditions on its use.

“For the first time, the president will have to face up, will have to be accountable for this war in Iraq,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said. “And he doesn’t want to face that reality.”

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, is scheduled to visit Capitol Hill on Wednesday to ask that lawmakers allow more time for the troop increase initiated by the administration to work. Members of the House are set to hear from him in a closed briefing on Wednesday afternoon, just hours before the spending measure is to reach the floor. He is then scheduled to brief senators.

Democrats were skeptical that he would change many minds. “He’s the commander,” said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “We always know that commanders are optimistic about their policies.”

General Petraeus’s briefing will come in a week when war-related developments are not running in the administration’s favor. Nine American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Monday and 20 others were wounded. And members of the family of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former professional football player and Army Ranger accidentally killed by other American soldiers in Afghanistan in 2004, appeared at an emotional House hearing Tuesday and accused the Pentagon and administration of misrepresenting the circumstances of his death.

Even as Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney repeated their claim that a deadline for beginning a troop withdrawal would cede Iraq to America’s enemies, it has quietly been setting targets of its own for the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to show progress on long-delayed political accommodations.

In a telephone interview from Baghdad, the new American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, said President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had bluntly told Mr. Maliki that failure to show results would undermine the administration’s efforts to buy him more time.

“There is Iraqi time and American time,” said Mr. Crocker. “And American time is running away from us, while Iraqi time is running at a slower place.”

Under the legislation before Congress, the United States would establish benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet to show progress in securing the country. If the president determines the Iraqis are complying, he would be directed to begin removing troops by Oct. 1, with a goal of having most combat forces out within six months. If the president concludes the Iraqis are not making progress on the benchmarks, the pullout would begin earlier, by July.

The House narrowly approved its version of the spending measure last month when it required a full withdrawal by fall of 2008 to mollify antiwar Democrats. Several House Democrats said they would support the latest version of the legislation, even though the withdrawal date is now in the form of a goal.

“It is the best we can do under the circumstances,” said Representative Hank Johnson, a first-term Democrat from Georgia.

While Republicans have argued strongly against the Democratic-sponsored Iraq spending plan, they have put forth little resistance to the actual legislation, saying they are simply waiting for the president’s veto so lawmakers can try again to come up with a war spending bill.

Instead, Republicans have turned their fire on Mr. Reid, who last week declared “this war is lost.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, took his turn on Tuesday, saying such comments damage the morale of the troops. “We should not be pulling the rug out from under them and declaring their whole effort lost before it’s even completed,” he said.

And the Republican National Committee aired radio ads in Nevada, featuring a former Army captain criticizing Mr. Reid’s remarks.

Discussing the Democratic approach on “The Charlie Rose Show” on PBS taped Tuesday, Mr. Bush was asked what evidence he had that a hard withdrawal date would have a negative impact in Iraq. “Just logic,” Mr. Bush replied. “I mean, you say we start moving troops out. Don’t you think an enemy is going to wait and adjust based upon an announced timetable of withdrawal?”

In his criticism of Mr. Reid, Mr. Cheney noted that the Democratic leader had said the administration’s troop increase ran counter to the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

The study group said that a troop increase might be advisable if commanders thought it would be useful. But Mr. Cheney failed to mention that it also recommended a withdrawal of combat units by the end of the first quarter of 2008, about the same time envisioned in the legislation.

Mr. Reid fired back directly at Mr. Cheney on Tuesday, appearing at the same microphones just moments after the vice president.

“The president sends out his attack dog often,” said Mr. Reid. “That’s also known as Dick Cheney.”

Defending the legislation up for a vote this week, he said, “We believe the troops should get every penny they need and we have put our money where our mouth is with supplemental appropriations, but we believe there must be a change of direction in the war in Iraq.”

Mr. Reid said he was not going to engage in a tit-for-tat with the vice president. “I’m not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating,” Mr. Reid said.

David E. Sanger and David S. Cloud contributed reporting from Washington, and Jim Rutenberg from New York.

    Bush and Cheney Chide Democrats on Iraq Deadline, NYT, 25.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/washington/25cong.html?hp

At Least the Boss Was Satisfied by Gonzales’s Answers

April 24, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG and NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON, April 23 — President Bush said Monday that the Congressional testimony of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales last week, roundly panned by members of both parties, had “increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.”

Speaking during a short question-and-answer session in the Oval Office, Mr. Bush said of Mr. Gonzales’s performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, “The attorney general went up and gave a very candid assessment, and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer.”

Mr. Bush has repeatedly asserted his confidence in Mr. Gonzales, a longtime adviser, as criticism has mounted over the dismissals of eight United States attorneys.

But his statement on Monday was his first direct comment about Mr. Gonzales since the attorney general appeared before the committee, and it was at considerable odds with an overwhelmingly critical assessment of his testimony by members of both parties. It indicated that Mr. Bush, at least for now, has concluded his attorney general can weather the challenge to his leadership at the Justice Department, barring any evidence of wrongdoing.

That challenge had seemed all the more daunting as of Sunday, when Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the committee whom both sides view as a barometer of support for Mr. Gonzales, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and said, “The attorney general’s testimony was very, very damaging to his own credibility,” and that his continued tenure was “bad for the Department of Justice.”

Asked to comment on Mr. Bush’s assessment of Mr. Gonzales’s testimony on Monday, Mr. Specter said in a telephone interview, “I’m not going to get involved in evaluating the president’s decision to retain the attorney general.”

Mr. Specter added, “I will continue to work with the attorney general as long as he has that position.”

Several other Republican senators who have been critical of Mr. Gonzales, including Jeff Sessions of Alabama, John E. Sununu of New Hampshire and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

With many lawmakers working in their home districts, it was unclear whether their unresponsiveness was a result of busy schedules or a concerted effort to avoid a running, tit-for-tat debate with the White House over Mr. Gonzales’s future.

One senior Republican Congressional aide at work in Washington on Monday, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, called Mr. Bush’s statement that his confidence in Mr. Gonzales had grown after his testimony “curious”; another senior Republican aide asked, “Was he watching the same hearing as everyone else?”

White House officials were confronted Monday with questions about whether Mr. Bush’s statements of confidence would ultimately be followed by a resignation, with reporters recalling that Mr. Bush had pledged support for Donald H. Rumsfeld shortly before his ouster as defense secretary. “He’s staying,” the White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said of Mr. Gonzales in one such exchange on Monday morning.

Later, asked if Mr. Bush had seen all the testimony, Ms. Perino said the president had been traveling but had received updates from aides and had seen some of it on television news reports.

Pressure to push Mr. Gonzales out is likely to continue. Although Mr. Gonzales has sought to maintain the impression that the country’s legal business is going on without interruption, several Justice Department officials say that the attorney general and his advisers have been greatly distracted by the uproar.

Some administration allies had even voiced optimism last week that Mr. Gonzales would resign and spare Mr. Bush the discomfort of standing by him as support erodes even within his own party.

Speaking at a news briefing on Monday after announcing an initiative to fight identity theft, Mr. Gonzales indicated he had no such plan.

“I will stay as long as I can be effective, and I can be effective,” Mr. Gonzales said in response to questions about his plans.

He said he “can’t just be focused on the U.S. attorneys situation.”

“I’ve also got to be focused on what’s important for the American people,” he said.

Mr. Gonzales said he needed to spend time on his priorities, like combating terrorism, drug abuse and the danger to children from the Internet.

Emphasizing the point, the White House released a statement late Monday commending Mr. Gonzales and the Federal Trade Commission chairwoman, Deborah Platt Majoras, for their work on identity theft.

Asked how he knew he was still effective, Mr. Gonzales responded: “I think a cabinet secretary or the head of an agency every day should wake up and ask themselves that question: Am I still effective in this position? I think that’s a question that all of us should ask, every day.”

“And as long as I think that I can be effective,” he said, “and the president believes that I should continue to be at the head of the Department of Justice, I’ll continue serving as the attorney general.”

Mr. Gonzales added, “I’ve already indicated that I’ve made mistakes, and I accept responsibility for that.”

Mr. Bush has said all along that he would leave it to Mr. Gonzales to regain his credibility with Congress. And Mr. Gonzales’s testimony was viewed within both parties as a sort of screen test of whether he could remain in his job.

Members of the Senate committee expressed exasperation as Mr. Gonzales invoked a faulty memory more than 50 times when pressed about his involvement in the removal of the United States attorneys, saying he could not say how the idea of dismissing them originated or remember the details of a late November meeting with senior staff members at which the plan for the dismissals was discussed — and which he had attended, according to administration documents.

“If the attorney general’s hearing performance increased the president’s confidence in his ability to lead the Justice Department, then he’s setting the bar fairly low,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, in a statement on Monday.

He repeated his suspicions that the White House had removed the prosecutors because of partisan concerns that they were either not doing enough to prosecute Democrats on voter fraud charges or going too far in pressing corruption charges against Republicans. The White House denies those accusations.

In defending Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Bush said the Justice Department was fully within its rights to replace the prosecutors, who serve at the pleasure of the president. And, he and other officials said, after releasing thousands of internal documents and submitting to questioning in the Senate, no evidence of illegality on Mr. Gonzales’s part had surfaced.

“The attorney general broke no law, did no wrongdoing,” Mr. Bush said. “And some senators didn’t like his explanation, but he answered as honestly as he could. This is an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence.”

Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said in an interview that as far as the White House was concerned, the public was not paying much attention to the debate over Mr. Gonzales and that there was “a disconnect” between what he termed Washington’s fascination with the issue and the public’s interest in it.

“There’s no traction with the public because there is no serious allegation of wrongdoing,” Mr. Bartlett said.

And, if Mr. Gonzales were to step down, officials argued, it would wrongly lead the public to conclude that he had done something wrong.

David Johnston contributed reporting.

    At Least the Boss Was Satisfied by Gonzales’s Answers, NYT, 24.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/washington/24gonzales.html

Bush Won't Accept Iraq War Timetable

April 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:23 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, standing firmly against a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, said Tuesday that he will veto the latest war spending bill approved by Congress.

''I'm disappointed that the Democratic leadership has chosen this course,'' Bush said.

''They chose to make a political statement,'' he said. ''That's their right but it is wrong for our troops and it's wrong for our country. To accept the bill proposed by the Democratic leadership would be to accept a policy that directly contradicts the judgment of our military commanders.''

    Bush Won't Accept Iraq War Timetable, NYT, 24.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Reid: Bush in Denial Over War in Iraq

April 23, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:17 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Monday President Bush is in a state of denial over Iraq, ''and the new Congress will show him the way.'' Holding his ground, Bush renewed his staunch opposition to timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals.

''I believe strongly that politicians in Washington shouldn't be telling generals how to do their job,'' Bush said at the White House after meeting with Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Iraq war. ''I believe artificial timetables for withdrawal would be a mistake.''

Reid, D-Nev., said the Democratic-controlled House and Senate will soon pass a war funding bill that includes ''a fair and reasonable timetable'' for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops. In a speech prepared for delivery later Monday, he also challenged Bush to present an alternative if, as expected, he vetoes the measure.

Reid's office released excerpts of the speech a few hours before Bush made his comments.

The president said that Petraeus will go to Capitol Hill to tell lawmakers what's going right in Iraq -- and what's not.

''It's a tough time, as the general will tell Congress,'' Bush said. Still, the president insisted, progress is being made in Iraq as more U.S. troops head into the country to provide security.

Reid drew criticism from Bush and others last week when he said the war in Iraq had been lost.

The Nevada Democrat did not repeat the assertion in his prepared speech, saying that ''The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential.''

Congress is expected to pass legislation this week that contains a nonbinding timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq by spring of 2008.

In addition, Democratic officials have said the measure will require the military to meet its own standards for equipping, training and resting troops who are sent to Iraq. Bush would be able to waive the requirements.

Officials also say the measure will set standards for the Iraqi government to meet as it tries to establish itself as a democratic society.

Bush has pledged repeatedly to reject any bill that includes a timetable for a troop withdrawal, and there is no doubt that Republicans in Congress have the votes to sustain his veto.

That would require Congress to approve a second funding bill quickly to avoid significant disruptions in military operations.

Reid's speech blended an attack on Bush, an appeal for patience to the anti-war voters who last fall gave Democrats control, and an attempt to shape the post-veto debate.

''I understand the restlessness that some feel. Many who voted for change in November anticipated dramatic and immediate results in January,'' he said.

''But like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief -- and this is his war,'' Reid said.

Reid said Democrats have sought Republican support for their attempts to force Bush to change course. ''Only the president is the odd man out, and he is making the task even harder by demanding absolute fidelity from his party.''

Looking beyond Bush's expected veto, he said, ''If the president disagrees, let him come to us with an alternative. Instead of sending us back to square one with a veto, some tough talk and nothing more, let him come to the table in the spirit of bipartisanship that Americans demand and deserve.''

Reid noted disapprovingly that in a speech last week, Bush repeatedly said there were signs of progress in Iraq in the wake of a troop increase he ordered last winter.

''The White House transcript says the president made those remarks in the state of Michigan. I believe he made them in the state of denial,'' said Reid.

Democratic officials have also said they intend to add a minimum wage increase to the war funding bill. Key lawmakers announced agreement late last week on a package of business tax breaks to accompany the boost in the wage floor, which would total $2.10 cents an hour in three equal installments.

Apart from the clash over war policy, Bush has pledged to veto the funding bill if Democrats go ahead with plans to include billions of dollars in domestic spending.

    Reid: Bush in Denial Over War in Iraq, NYT, 23.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Bush: Sectarian Killings Drop in Baghdad

April 21, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:50 a.m. ET
The New York Times

EAST GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) -- President Bush said Friday that sectarian murders have dropped by half in Baghdad since the U.S.-Iraqi military buildup began in February, rejecting a Democratic leader's claim that the war is lost. The president said early signs show the operation to quell violence is meeting expectations.

''There are still horrific attacks in Iraq, such as the bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, but the direction of the fight is beginning to shift,'' Bush said in his second speech on terrorism in two days.

Bush spoke at a high school in suburban Grand Rapids to about 500 students and members of the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan. Outside, dozens of protesters shouted anti-war chants and held signs that said ''No blood for oil,'' ''End imperialism now'' and ''Sieg heil Bush.''

Bush urged Americans not to be swayed by the violence inflicted by suicide bombers and focus, instead, on incremental gains Iraqi and U.S. forces are making day by day, block by block in Baghdad. Weapons stockpiles are being seized, extremists are being captured and displaced families are returning home, he said.

''When a family decides to stop depending on militias to protect them or a young man rejects insurgency and joins the Iraqi army, it doesn't usually make the evening news,'' Bush said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., says the war in Iraq is ''lost'' and can only be won through political and economic diplomatic means. He said the surge is not accomplishing anything. Republicans have pounced on Reid for his comments, accusing him of turning his back on the troops and hurting military morale in Iraq.

Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who chairs the Armed Services Committee, defended Reid on Friday. Levin said he agreed the military fight in Iraq cannot be won and that Bush's strategy lacks the necessary leverage to force Iraqi politicians to reach a settlement.

Bush ''doesn't have the teeth,'' Levin told reporters in a conference call. ''He doesn't have the pressure on the Iraqi leaders by just repeating, which he's done now for a month, that our patience is not unlimited.''

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said the United States needs to send a clear message to the Iraqi government that American troops won't stay there indefinitely. Klobuchar, who visited Baghdad and Fallujah last month, said the best thing America can do for its troops is to get its Iraq policy right.

''This means, as recommended by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, that we begin the process of redeploying our troops with the goal of withdrawing combat forces by next year,'' she said in remarks prepared for broadcast Saturday following the president's weekly radio address.

Klobuchar said it might be necessary for some troops to stay in Iraq to train Iraqi police, to provide security for American forces that remain behind, and to conduct special operations.

''This means not a surge in troops but a surge in diplomacy, economy and Iraqi responsibility,'' she said.

Pushing back against Democrats, Bush said that not all the troops that he ordered in January in a military buildup have arrived. It's too early to assume defeat, he said.

''Ultimately, withdrawal would increase the probability that American troops would have to return to Iraq -- and confront an enemy that is even more dangerous,'' Bush said.

In past addresses on the war, Bush has worked to paint a rose-colored picture of progress in Iraq. This time, he showed the audience in Michigan maps and a photograph of the rubble left by a massive bombing earlier this week.

Bush acknowledged that since the new security operation began in Baghdad and Anbar Province, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents, some of the highest casualty levels of the war have been reported. That likely will continue as more troops move into more dangerous neighborhoods in Baghdad, he said.

''We must also expect the terrorists and insurgents to continue mounting terrible attacks,'' he said, and then showed the audience a photograph of what was left after four large bombs exploded in mostly Shiite areas of Baghdad and killed 230 people at a bus stop. He said it had all the ''hallmarks of an al-Qaida attack.''

It was the deadliest day in the city since the mid-February start of the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to reduce violence in the capital and Anbar Province.

''Anbar province is still not safe,'' Bush said.

After the speech, Bush made an unscheduled stop at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, where the former president was buried in January. He laid a bouquet of white roses on a stone wall that marks Ford's grave and paused there for a few moments. The 38th president, who grew up in Grand Rapids, died Dec. 26 at age 93.

Associated Press writers James Prichard in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

    Bush: Sectarian Killings Drop in Baghdad, NYT, 21.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush.html

No Solution in Sight as Bush and Lawmakers Discuss Iraq Spending Measure

April 19, 2007
The New York Times
By JEFF ZELENY and JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, April 18 — After weeks of acrimonious sparring over financing the next phase of the war, President Bush and Congressional leaders softened their tone on Wednesday but failed to resolve their differences over a timeline for removing most American combat troops from Iraq next year.

Mr. Bush met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the White House for nearly an hour, the first face-to-face discussion since the House and Senate passed emergency Iraq spending bills last month with provisions to end the war. Democrats said they would send the president legislation by the end of next week, despite his pledge to veto it.

“We believe he must search his soul, his conscience, and find out what is the right thing for the American people,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, told reporters after the meeting. “I believe signing this bill will do that.”

The White House, though, said Mr. Bush had no intention of signing any legislation that included a call for a troop withdrawal. Democrats do not have enough support to override a veto, so the debate over financing the troops remains at an impasse.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said, “The president, obviously, as you already know, is not going to accept language that specifies a date for surrender or language that micromanages the efforts of our military in Iraq.”

The discussions took place on one of the deadliest days of the year in Baghdad, where at least 171 people were killed in bombings. Democrats said the violence underscored the urgency of finding a new direction in Iraq, one that did not place American troops in the middle of a civil war.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Bush declared, “People have strong opinions around the table and I’m looking forward to listening to them.” And for the next hour, according to participants and aides in the room, a frank conversation unfolded between the president and the 10 legislative leaders seated around the table in the Cabinet Room.

A White House official who attended the meeting, and spoke on condition of anonymity in order to describe details, said Mr. Bush’s first question to the Democratic leaders was, “When can you get me a bill?”

And, this official said, Mr. Bush told the Democrats that he hoped to ultimately follow several of the guidelines set forth last year in a report by the Iraq Study Group, which called for an eventual draw-down of American troops. According to the official, Mr. Bush noted that the Study Group, whose co-chairman was his father’s former political aide, James A. Baker III, had suggested that a temporary troop increase could be a necessary step on the way to an eventual withdrawal.

For weeks, White House officials have said they are eager for Democrats to send a bill to the president that he will veto, so they can begin negotiating a financing measure both sides can agree on. But first, Democrats must reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation, which include different timetables for troops to be removed from Iraq.

The House passed a bill calling for troops to be withdrawn no later than Sept. 1, 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet a series of benchmarks. The Senate measure would begin a gradual redeployment of troops in four months, but set a goal for troops to be removed by March 31, 2008.

According to several participants at the meeting, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered to accept the Senate timelines. But Mr. Bush and Republican leaders said they would not support any deadlines.

As she left the White House, Ms. Pelosi called the session a “productive meeting.”

“We came here in a spirit of hope,” she said, “recognizing that this is an historic opportunity for the executive branch, for the president and the Congress to work together to wind down this war and to ensure the security of our country and the stability of the region.”

During the meeting, Mr. Bush was the only administration official who spoke, though he was accompanied by Vice President Dick Cheney, the White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, and others.

Members of the group, which included four senators and six representatives, all spoke, including Mr. Reid, who compared the Iraq war to the Vietnam War and suggested to Mr. Bush that he should not continue with the war simply to protect his legacy. The president was visibly angered by the comment, according to aides, but he did not respond directly.

The session was the beginning of a fresh round of negotiating between the Democratic-led Congress and the White House. While neither Democrats nor Republicans seemed willing to compromise their main objectives, both sides are also keenly aware that in the coming weeks they must authorize financing for the troops in Iraq.

Next week, as the House and Senate are scheduled to vote on the compromise Iraq legislation, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior commander in Iraq, is scheduled to come to Washington to press the administration’s case. Initially, some Democrats rejected the offer to meet with General Petraeus, but said they changed their minds to avoid being cast as unwilling to compromise.

Still, despite a fresh air of civility, it remained an open question whether anything was accomplished on Wednesday. When asked whether anything had changed as a result of the meeting, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, replied, “No.”

    No Solution in Sight as Bush and Lawmakers Discuss Iraq Spending Measure, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/washington/19prexy.html

Bush Has Mixed Record Handling Disasters

April 18, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:10 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Disaster has been both the making and the undoing of President Bush.

Bush's bearing after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- tough yet empathetic -- felt right to the public. He rode that support to a second term, despite questions about the economy and the war in Iraq.

He was far less sure-footed when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. He stumbled through his initial appearances in the disaster zone, leaving the impression of a president who was distant from the immense suffering. His presidency -- like the region -- has never quite recovered from its faltering early reaction.

When tragedy strikes, presidents are expected to be national consoler -- figures who affirm the grief even as they chart a path out of it. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't.

President Bush's father, in the middle of a what became his losing re-election campaign in 1992, was slammed for his administration's lackluster response to Hurricane Andrew. By contrast, Bill Clinton rebuilt his embattled presidency partially on the strength of his commanding reaction to the Oklahoma City bombings.

The current President Bush has had plenty of experience with disaster.

When the space shuttle Columbia broke apart during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003, raining debris over Texas and Louisiana and killing its seven-member crew, Bush offered comfort to families by phone and fought tears on television. In 2004, Florida was hit by four hurricanes, prompting a president seeking re-election to pay five storm-focused visits to that politically crucial state.

Periodically since he launched the Iraq war in 2003, Bush has held emotional private meetings with relatives of U.S. soldiers lost in battle.

On Tuesday, Bush was called again to comforter-in-chief duty. An apparently lonely and troubled Virginia Tech student had gunned down 32 people at the Blacksburg, Va., school before killing himself.

Speaking at a convocation to young people worn thin by fear and grief, Bush encouraged them to lean where he does: on family, friends and faith.

''On this terrible day of mourning, it's hard to imagine that a time will come when life at Virginia Tech will return to normal,'' the president said. ''But such a day will come. And when it does, you will always remember the friends and teachers who were lost yesterday, and the time you shared with them, and the lives they hoped to lead.''

The president's remarks were fatherly -- more fellow church member and citizen than the galvanizing national leader who spoke in Washington's National Cathedral three days after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people. Then, in soaring terms, he pronounced it only ''the middle hour of our grief'' but one that had already produced resolve.

''This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others. It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing,'' the president said.

By that afternoon, he had reached a burned-out fire engine on the rubble pile at the World Trade Center and grabbed a rescuer's bullhorn.

''I can hear you. I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon,'' Bush shouted to the weary workers.

Altogether, it was one of the finest days of his presidency.

Almost exactly four years later, Katrina ushered in a troubled period for Bush.

Other problems -- the escalation of a CIA leak investigation and the abandonment of a Supreme Court nomination -- further put him off stride. With the situation in Iraq growing deadlier and more complicated, the president never regained his footing, and last year his party lost control of Congress to Democrats.

Clinton proved his disaster bona fides with an emotional visit to the scene of the Midwest's Great Flood of 1993 and his on-the-scene empathy after the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

That tragedy came at a low point in his presidency, not long after his party's loss of power in Congress in the 1994 midterm elections. Clinton's reaction helped send his approval rating over 50 percent, setting the stage for his successful battles with the Republican Congress and his 1996 re-election.

Clinton also faced the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School during his presidency. He went to Colorado to meet with survivors a month after the shootings that left 15 dead, including the two gunmen. He later returned to campaign for gun control.

Under the first President Bush, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was accused of botching South Carolina's recovery from Hurricane Hugo in 1989. He also was criticized for a by-the-book federal effort when Andrew struck, as thousands went without shelter and other necessities for days. He visited the area, but his administration declined an initial appeal to send a military engineering brigade and other troops.

The elder Bush later changed course and circumvented the embattled agency by appointing his transportation secretary, Andrew Card, to coordinate relief efforts.

But it was too late. He lost to Clinton in the November election.

EDITOR'S NOTE -- Jennifer Loven has reported from Washington since 1997 and has covered the Bush White House for five years.

    Bush Has Mixed Record Handling Disasters, NYT, 18.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-and-Disaster.html

President Bush's remarks at Virginia Tech

17.4.2007
The Associated Press
USA Today

President Bush's remarks Tuesday in Blacksburg, Va., as transcribed by the White House:

Governor, thank you. President Steger, thank you very much. Students, and faculty, and staff, and grieving family members, and members of this really extraordinary place.

Laura and I have come to Blacksburg today with hearts full of sorrow. This is a day of mourning for the Virginia Tech community — and it is a day of sadness for our entire nation. We've come to express our sympathy. In this time of anguish, I hope you know that people all over this country are thinking about you, and asking God to provide comfort for all who have been affected.

Yesterday began like any other day. Students woke up, and they grabbed their backpacks and they headed for class. And soon the day took a dark turn, with students and faculty barricading themselves in classrooms and dormitories — confused, terrified, and deeply worried. By the end of the morning, it was the worst day of violence on a college campus in American history — and for many of you here today, it was the worst day of your lives.

It's impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering. Those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they're gone — and they leave behind grieving families, and grieving classmates, and a grieving nation.

In such times as this, we look for sources of strength to sustain us. And in this moment of loss, you're finding these sources everywhere around you. These sources of strength are in this community, this college community. You have a compassionate and resilient community here at Virginia Tech. Even as yesterday's events were still unfolding, members of this community found each other; you came together in dorm rooms and dining halls and on blogs. One recent graduate wrote this: "I don't know most of you guys, but we're all Hokies, which means we're family. To all of you who are okay, I'm happy for that. For those of you who are in pain or have lost someone close to you, I'm sure you can call on any one of us and have help any time you need it."

These sources of strength are with your loved ones. For many of you, your first instinct was to call home and let your moms and dads know that you were okay. Others took on the terrible duty of calling the relatives of a classmate or a colleague who had been wounded or lost. I know many of you feel awfully far away from people you lean on and people you count on during difficult times. But as a dad, I can assure you, a parent's love is never far from their child's heart. And as you draw closer to your own families in the coming days, I ask you to reach out to those who ache for sons and daughters who will never come home.

These sources of strength are also in the faith that sustains so many of us. Across the town of Blacksburg and in towns all across America, houses of worship from every faith have opened their doors and have lifted you up in prayer. People who have never met you are praying for you; they're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers, real power. In times like this, we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God. As the Scriptures tell us, "Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

And on this terrible day of mourning, it's hard to imagine that a time will come when life at Virginia Tech will return to normal. But such a day will come. And when it does, you will always remember the friends and teachers who were lost yesterday, and the time you shared with them, and the lives they hoped to lead. May God bless you. May God bless and keep the souls of the lost. And may His love touch all those who suffer and grieve.

    President Bush's remarks at Virginia Tech, UT, 17.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-virginia-tech-bush-remarks_N.htm

Bush Orders Flags to Half Staff

April 17, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:27 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Expressing the nation's sorrow, President Bush ordered flags flown at half staff Tuesday in honor of those killed in the nation's deadliest shooting spree.

''Our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech,'' Bush said in a proclamation. ''We lift them up in our prayers and we ask a loving God to comfort those who are suffering.''

Bush planned to travel Tuesday afternoon to speak at Virginia Tech, where 32 people were gunned down in two separate attacks. He and first lady Laura Bush were to attend a campus convocation ''as representatives of the entire nation,'' the White House said.

''They will be there as the national representatives on a day that is full of sorrow for every American,'' she said. ''He will remark about the amazing strength of the community, and I'm not just talking about the city limits of Blacksburg, but as you seen that's there's been an outpouring of support.''

Bush directed flags to remain in the lowered position through sunset Sunday.

Meanwhile, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has sent 12 agents to Virginia Tech and the FBI has contributed some 15 agents as well for the investigation. The federal help, including input from the U.S. Attorney's office in the Western District of Virginia, is being coordinated at a command center set up on the campus.

In addition to helping with the crime scene, the Department of Justice is making counselors available to victims and their families through a special office and the Education Department is offering assistance as well.

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, just back from Japan to deal with the tragedy, was traveling with Bush on Air Force One to the convocation.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino deflected any questions about Bush's view of needed changes to gun control policy, saying the time for that discussion is not now.

''We understand that there's going to be and there has been an ongoing national discussion, conversation and debate about gun control policy. Of course we are going to be participants in that conversation,'' she said. ''Today, however, is a day that is time to focus on the families, the school, the community.''

Perino added: ''Everyone's been shaken to the core by this event and so I think what we need to do is focus on support of the victims and their families and then also allow the facts of the case to unfold before we talk any more about policies.''

In times of tragedy, Americans turn to the president to be the nation's consoler and comforter.

Bush rallied the nation after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. One of the most enduring images of his presidency is Bush standing atop a pile of rubble in New York with a bullhorn in his hand. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Bush made repeated trips to the region but wound up criticized for the government's sluggish response to the storm.

President Clinton went to Oklahoma City in 1995 after the bombing of the federal building there, and his on-the-scene empathy was later viewed as the key factor in reviving his presidency and helping him win re-election.

After the shooting on Monday, Bush expressed shock and sadness about the killings. He lamented that schools should be places of ''safety, sanctuary and learning.''

    Bush Orders Flags to Half Staff, NYT, 17.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Virginia-Tech.html

Editorial

Loosening the Stem Cell Binds

April 13, 2007
The New York Times
 

The Senate easily approved a bill this week that would free embryonic stem cell research from the worst shackles imposed by the Bush administration. The House passed its version earlier. A substantial majority of Americans tell pollsters they support embryonic stem cell research. Yet one man, President Bush, and a minority of his party, the religious and social conservatives, are once again trying to impose their moral code on the rest of the nation and stand in the way of scientific progress.

Mr. Bush is threatening a veto, and neither house had enough votes for the bills on initial passage to override him. Concerned voters will need to ratchet up the pressure on recalcitrant Republicans to help stop the president from killing the second enlightened stem cell bill in less than a year.

Under the president’s current policy, federal funds can be used to support research on only some 20 stem cell lines that have limited scientific value. Many of the lines are deteriorating or contaminated, and the group as a whole lacks the diversity needed to conduct a wide range of studies. There is no doubt that progress is being hampered. The director of the National Institutes of Health, who had initially been a good soldier in trying to live within the president’s policy, told the Senate last month that American science would be better served if the nation let researchers have access to more stem cell lines.

The restrictions on federal financing have led to absurdly complicated and costly maneuvers. Scientists are forced to buy extra equipment and laboratory space with private money to perform off-limits research while using equipment and supplies bought with federal money on the permitted stem cell research. In a shocking example cited during Senate debate, a California researcher who had been cultivating stem cells in a makeshift privately financed lab suffered a power failure but was unable to transfer her lines into industrial-strength freezers in another lab because they were federally financed. Two years of work melted away because of this inanity.

The Senate bill would greatly expand the available stem cell lines by tapping into the thousands of surplus embryos left over at fertility clinics. The bill would allow federal support for research on stem cell lines derived from embryos originally created for fertility treatments but not needed for that purpose and thus doomed to be discarded. The donors would have to give their informed consent and could not receive any financial or other inducements to donate their surplus embryos. In a nod to the religious conservatives, the bill also calls for research on alternative techniques to derive stem cells without the use of human embryos, an approach that is certainly worth pursuing but is deemed less promising by most experts.

At the same time, the Senate passed a bill proposed by supporters of the president’s policy that seeks to derive stem cells from embryos that might be judged “naturally dead,” perhaps because they were considered unsuitable for transplantation at a fertility clinic. This is a poorly considered proposal that can only be deemed a diversion from the main business at hand — the need to free American science from the chains imposed by the president.

    Loosening the Stem Cell Binds, NYT, 13.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/opinion/13fri1.html

Bush Condemns Green Zone Attack

April 12, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:53 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush strongly condemned Thursday's attack on Iraq's parliament building within the heavily protected Green Zone. ''My message to the Iraqi government is `We stand with you,''' the president said.

At least two lawmakers were killed and many other people were wounded in the attack in the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria, situated in the heart of the U.S.-protected zone.

''I strongly condemn the action,'' Bush said in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with educational leaders. ''It reminds us, though, that there is an enemy willing to bomb innocent people in a symbol of democracy.''

The president said that the Iraqi assembly represents the millions of Iraqis who voted in recent elections.

''There is a type of person that would walk in that building and kill innocent life and that is the same type of person that is willing to come and kill innocent Americans,'' Bush said. ''And it is in our interest to help this young democracy be in a position so it can sustain itself and govern itself and defend itself against these extremists and radicals.''

Bush, who is being kept abreast of the situation in the Green Zone, planned to meet Thursday with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who both recently returned from Iraq.

''Our hearts go out to those who suffered as a result of this bombing,'' Bush said. ''My message to the Iraqi government is `We stand with you as you take the steps necessary to not only reconcile politically, but also put a security force in place that is able to deal with these kinds of people.'''

At the State Department, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the attack showed terrorists were determined to destroy the Iraqi people's dreams of democracy, but did not mean that Bush's troop increase in Iraq had failed.

''This is still early in the process and I don't think anyone expected that there wouldn't be counter-efforts by terrorists to undermine the security presence,'' she said.

McCain, who met with Rice, said the bombing could not take away from the initial, small successes from the surge. ''It makes all of us sad for these public servants who have been injured or killed, but I don't think you can change the larger picture (that) we are achieving some small successes,'' said McCain, a presidential candidate who has been a vocal supporter of the war effort.

    Bush Condemns Green Zone Attack, NYT, 12.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq-Bombing.html

3 Generals Spurn the Position of War 'Czar'

Bush Seeks Overseer For Iraq, Afghanistan

Wednesday, April 11, 2007; A01
By Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

The White House has not publicly disclosed its interest in creating the position, hoping to find someone President Bush can anoint and announce for the post all at once. Officials said they are still considering options for how to reorganize the White House's management of the two conflicts. If they cannot find a person suited for the sort of specially empowered office they envision, they said, they may have to retain the current structure.

The administration's interest in the idea stems from long-standing concern over the coordination of civilian and military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan by different parts of the U.S. government. The Defense and State departments have long struggled over their roles and responsibilities in Iraq, with the White House often forced to referee.

The highest-ranking White House official responsible exclusively for the wars is deputy national security adviser Meghan O'Sullivan, who reports to national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and does not have power to issue orders to agencies. O'Sullivan plans to step down soon, giving the White House the opportunity to rethink how it organizes the war effort.

Unlike O'Sullivan, the new czar would report directly to Bush and to Hadley and would have the title of assistant to the president, just as Hadley and the other highest-ranking White House officials have, the sources said. The new czar would also have "tasking authority," or the power to issue directions, over other agencies, they said.

To fill such a role, the White House is searching for someone with enough stature and confidence to deal directly with heavyweight administration figures such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Besides Sheehan, sources said, the White House or intermediaries have sounded out retired Army Gen. Jack Keane and retired Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, who also said they are not interested. Ralston declined to comment; Keane confirmed he declined the offer, adding: "It was discussed weeks ago."

Kurt Campbell, a Clinton administration Pentagon official who heads the Center for a New American Security, said the difficulty in finding someone to take the job shows that Bush has exhausted his ability to sign up top people to help salvage a disastrous war. "Who's sitting on the bench?" he asked. "Who is there to turn to? And who would want to take the job?"

All three generals who declined the job have been to varying degrees administration insiders. Keane, a former Army vice chief of staff, was one of the primary proponents of sending more troops to Iraq and presented Bush with his plan for a major force increase during an Oval Office meeting in December. The president adopted the concept in January, although he did not dispatch as many troops as Keane proposed.

Ralston, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was named by Rice last August to serve as her special envoy for countering the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a group designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Sheehan, a 35-year Marine, served on the Defense Policy Board advising the Pentagon early in the Bush administration and at one point was reportedly considered by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He now works as an executive at Bechtel Corp. developing oil projects in the Middle East.

In an interview yesterday, Sheehan said that Hadley contacted him and they discussed the job for two weeks but that he was dubious from the start. "I've never agreed on the basis of the war, and I'm still skeptical," Sheehan said. "Not only did we not plan properly for the war, we grossly underestimated the effect of sanctions and Saddam Hussein on the Iraqi people."

In the course of the discussions, Sheehan said, he called around to get a better feel for the administration landscape.

"There's the residue of the Cheney view -- 'We're going to win, al-Qaeda's there' -- that justifies anything we did," he said. "And then there's the pragmatist view -- how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence." Sheehan said he wrote a note March 27 declining interest.

Gordon Johndroe, a National Security Council spokesman, would not discuss contacts with candidates but confirmed that officials are considering a newly empowered czar.

"The White House is looking at a number of options on how to structure the Iraq and Afghanistan office in light of Meghan O'Sullivan's departure and the completion of both the Iraq and Afghanistan strategic reviews," he said. He added that "No decisions have been made" and "a list of candidates has not been narrowed down."

The idea of someone overseeing the wars has been promoted to the White House by several outside advisers. "It would be definitely a good idea," said Frederick W. Kagan, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Hope they do it, and hope they do it soon. And I hope they pick the right guy. It's a real problem that we don't have a single individual back here who is really capable of coordinating the effort."

Other variations are under consideration. House Democrats have put a provision in their version of a war spending bill that would designate a coordinator to oversee all assistance to Iraq. That person, who would report directly to the president, would require Senate confirmation; the White House said it opposes the proposal because Rice already has an aid coordinator.

Some administration critics said the ideas miss the point. "An individual can't fix a failed policy," said Carlos Pascual, former State Department coordinator of Iraq reconstruction, who is now a vice president at the Brookings Institution. "So the key thing is to figure out where the policy is wrong."

    3 Generals Spurn the Position of War 'Czar', Wp, 11.4.2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/10/AR2007041001776.html?hpid=topnews

Editorial

Bush on the Border

April 11, 2007
The New York Times

President Bush went to the Mexico border in Arizona on Monday and showed once again that immigration is an issue he understands. He said America suffers from a system that exploits people who come to do jobs that citizens won’t do. He said the country needed “a practical answer” that promotes an orderly flow of legal immigrants, eases pressure at the border and opens a path to citizenship for the hidden 12 million who keep our economy humming. And he urged Congress to find that answer through a “serious, civil and conclusive debate.”

It was good that Mr. Bush made these points, as he periodically does. But there was a dissonance in his speech, because it came only two weeks after he and a group of Senate Republicans circulated a list of “first principles” about immigration that amounted to a huge step backward for efforts to fix a broken system in a reasonable, humane way.

It proposed new conditions on immigrant labor so punitive and extreme that they amounted to a radical rethinking of immigration — not as an expression of the nation’s ideals and an integral source of its vitality and character, but as a strictly contractual phenomenon designed to extract cheap labor from an unwelcome underclass.

New immigrant workers and those already here would all be treated as itinerant laborers. They could renew their visas, but only by paying extortionate fees and fines. There would be a path to legal status, but one so costly and long that it is essentially a mirage: by some estimates, a family of five could pay more than $64,000 and wait up to 25 years before any member could even apply for a green card. Other families would be torn apart; new workers and those who legalize themselves would have no right to sponsor relatives to join them.

In a country that views immigrants as its lifeblood and cherishes the unity of families, the Republican talking points were remarkable for their chill of nativism and exploitation. They were also unrealistic. The hurdles would create huge impediments to hiring and keeping a stable work force, while pushing the illegal economy deeper underground.

The thrust of Mr. Bush’s speech leaves little room for a vision as crabbed and inhumane as the one he and his party have circulated. It’s hard to tell whether his plainspoken eloquence in Yuma was meant to distance himself from those earlier and benighted talking points, or whether he has simply been talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Mr. Bush should clear up the confusion. He should reaffirm the importance of family-based immigration and of an achievable path to citizenship for those willing, as he put it, “to pay their debt to society and demonstrate the character that makes a good citizen.”

Clarity and forcefulness from Mr. Bush are important because the prospects for a good immigration bill this year are so uncertain. The Senate plans to take up the issue next month, but there is no bill yet, and the talking-points memo shows the debate drifting to the hard right. Edward Kennedy, the Senate’s most stalwart advocate of comprehensive reform, has been left in the lurch as the Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain and Sam Brownback have run away from sensible positions to court hard-line voters. A decent bipartisan House bill, sponsored by Representatives Jeff Flake and Luis Gutierrez, may not get the hearing it deserves.

Mr. Bush made a strong case for comprehensive reform on Monday. He should keep it up — publicly and forthrightly, as he did this week, and forget about backroom negotiations that produce harsh political manifestoes to appease hard-liners.

    Bush on the Border, NYT, 11.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/opinion/11wed1.html

Bush Criticizes Democrats for Delay in Iraq Spending Bill

April 11, 2007
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, April 10 — President Bush, at loggerheads with Congress over an emergency Iraq spending bill, accused Democrats on Tuesday of behaving irresponsibly, as the two sides moved closer to confrontation over whether — or how far — lawmakers could push Mr. Bush toward withdrawing troops.

With the Senate back at work after a weeklong Easter recess, Mr. Bush chose a favorable venue — an American Legion post in Fairfax, Va. — to renew his threat to veto any measure that included a timetable for withdrawal. The speech included some of his most pointed language to date.

“Democratic leaders in Congress are bent on using a bill that funds our troops to make a political statement about the war,” Mr. Bush said. “They need to do it quickly and get it to my desk so I can veto it, and then Congress can get down to the business of funding our troops without strings and without further delay.”

The House and Senate have each passed spending bills that include withdrawal language; the chambers must now reconcile the bills and send the final product to Mr. Bush. The White House has been publicly counting the days — Tuesday was Day 64 — since the president sent his spending request to Congress, as part of an effort to paint Democrats as the party of delay.

“It is irresponsible for the Democratic leadership in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds they need to succeed,” Mr. Bush said, adding that he is inviting leaders of both parties to the White House next week to “discuss the way forward.”

But the White House made clear that Mr. Bush had no intention of using the session to negotiate or compromise, and Democrats reacted harshly. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said Democrats would not acquiesce to the president’s demands of removing the troop withdrawal provision.

“By our Constitution, we have equal say that he has,” Mr. Reid said. “And he’s got to listen to us, because we are speaking for the American people. He isn’t.”

As Democrats brace for the confrontation over war spending, hoping to persuade the administration to change its Iraq strategy, the party is also seeking to navigate its own internal fissures over how vigorously to press the president. Aides to Mr. Reid and to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said the two had not yet decided whether to meet with Mr. Bush.

Democratic leaders are facing pressure from the left to hold their ground. Liberal Democrats like Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin say that if Mr. Bush carries out his veto threat, Democrats should pursue legislation to curb financing for the military operation by March 31, 2008. But other more moderate Democrats, including Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the Armed Services Committee chairman, have said they do not favor that approach.

The White House and the Democrats are betting they can blame each other for any delay in getting money to the troops. Democrats believe, as Mr. Reid said, that the public is on their side, while the White House is banking on support from veterans like those who attended Tuesday’s speech. Yet even there, some confessed to doubts about the nation’s continued involvement in the war.

“I’m conflicted a little about it,” said Dan Dellinger, who served during the Vietnam era as a captain in the Army. “We’re noble in what we’re doing to help out another country, but everybody hates to see lives lost.”

But Mr. Dellinger, like others who attended, said that in the end he came down in support of the president. “I think Congress should listen to him,” he said.

With the House still on recess for another week, it remained an open question how — and when — the confrontation would be resolved. The work of reconciling the bills cannot begin until the House returns, and in the meantime, Mr. Bush warned that the Pentagon would soon have to transfer $1.6 billion from other military accounts “to cover the shortfall” caused by the lack of a bill.

He ticked off a series of cutbacks he said the military would be forced to consider if a bill was not approved soon, including curtailing training for National Guard and Army Reserve forces if there was no measure by mid-April, and curtailing training for active duty forces if there was no bill by mid-May.

But Democratic leaders rejected the notion that the money for the troops was on the verge of running out. “The urgency is only in the president’s head,” Mr. Reid said, walking through the Capitol after a news conference. “We’ll get something done soon.”

Still, Republicans said it would not be soon enough. Senate Republicans sent a letter to Ms. Pelosi on Tuesday, urging her to call the House back into session to deal with the Iraq spending bill. (Mr. Bush, though, did not echo that call in his speech.) Aides to Ms. Pelosi rejected the Republican letter as political posturing.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, seized on the differences emerging among some Democrats. “This debate among Democrats is another reason why this could be dragged out entirely too long and needs to be dealt with now,” he said.

    Bush Criticizes Democrats for Delay in Iraq Spending Bill, NYT, 11.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/washington/11prexy.html

Bush's approval rating sits below 40%

USA Roday
By Susan Page

WASHINGTON — President Bush is reaching levels of consistency that no White House would want.

Bush's job-approval rating in a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Monday through Thursday is 38%. His standing has stayed below 40% for seven consecutive months.

Since the advent of modern polling, only two presidents have suffered longer strings of such low ratings. One was Harry Truman, whose popularity sank during the final 26 months of his tenure as the Korean War stalemated. The other was Richard Nixon during the 13 months leading up to his resignation amid the Watergate scandal.

"It's pretty hard for a president to get ratings this low in general, and then to be in the position where you basically don't budge — that's been reserved for some of the least popular presidents during the worst times of the last 60 years," says Jeffrey Jones of the Gallup Poll, who analyzed the historic data.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush pays little attention to polls and is "laser-focused" on such issues as fighting terrorism and reforming immigration. "If we're reviewing consecutive streaks, one of the most impressive is our 60-plus months of economic growth and 42 months of job creation," she said.

"Look, we're aware of the polls," Perino said. "We realize the war is unpopular and that people wanted to see a change. That's why the president announced a new strategy in Iraq and Gen. (David) Petraeus is starting to implement it."

Faltering public support drains a president's political capital and makes it more difficult for him to persuade others to follow his lead — for instance, to support embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or pass an Iraq spending bill without restrictions.

Gallup's average approval rating for presidents is 55%. In second terms, Bill Clinton averaged 61%; Ronald Reagan, 55%. Bush has a second-term average of 41%.

Jones says Bush is at risk of joining Nixon and Truman as the only presidents to average approval ratings below 40%.

Nixon's average in his second term — shortened by his resignation — was 34%, and Truman's average was 36%.

As violence in Iraq escalated, Bush dipped below 40% in October, and his standing hasn't risen above that level since then. Besides Truman and Nixon, the only other president to have gone as long as seven months under 40% is Jimmy Carter, beleaguered by crises over energy and Iranian-held hostages.

Only once has a president with such a long string of sub-40% ratings managed to rise above 50% again. That was Carter, who was boosted to 58% in November 1979 as the public rallied around the president when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.

Actually, Bush's 38% approval rating, while dismal, represents an improvement — his strongest standing this year. He was at 34% approval in the previous USA TODAY Poll, taken in late March. Now, 58% disapprove of the way he's handling his job as president. That's the lowest disapproval rating he's registered since November.

The telephone survey of 1,008 adults has a margin of error of +/—3 percentage points.

    Bush's approval rating sits below 40%, UT, 8.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-08-bush-approval-rating_N.htm

Bush Ties Drop in Illegal Immigration to His Policies

April 10, 2007
The New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR

YUMA, Ariz., April 9 — President Bush said Monday that tougher enforcement and a new fence at the Mexican border had sharply reduced the influx of illegal immigrants, and he pressed Congress to pass a sweeping revision of the nation’s immigration laws.

“It’s amazing progress that’s been made,” Mr. Bush said on a return visit to a section of the border that he inspected 11 months ago.

In the last six months, the White House said, Border Patrol reports showed that apprehensions of illegal immigrants along the Mexican border fell by 30 percent, to 418,184, from 594,142 in the comparable period a year earlier. In the Yuma sector, which spans parts of Arizona and California, apprehensions fell by 68 percent, to 25,217, from 79,131 in the comparable period a year earlier.

There are now 13,000 Border Patrol agents, up from 9,000 a year earlier. The number will reach 18,000 by the end of next year, Mr. Bush said.

The White House interprets the decline in apprehensions as a sign that the tighter security is working.

“When you’re apprehending fewer people, it means fewer are trying to come across,” Mr. Bush said. “And fewer are trying to come across because we’re deterring people from attempting illegal border crossings in the first place.”

While Border Patrol commanders have expressed cautious optimism that a corner is being turned, immigration experts note that apprehension figures swing erratically over the years. The numbers can be driven by a variety of factors aside from enforcement, including weather, Latin American economics and decisions by illegal immigrants to make fewer trips back and forth between the United States and Mexico.

At the dedication of a new Border Patrol station here, Mr. Bush said he hoped to strike a deal with Congress on immigration this year. Along with border control, he said, the essential elements of any bill are a temporary-worker program, a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants and a procedure that would allow some illegal immigrants to legalize their status.

The politics of immigration have shifted noticeably since the Senate passed a bipartisan bill by a vote of 62 to 36 last May. When Democrats took control of Congress three months ago, many people predicted that it would be easier to pass a comprehensive bill with the major ingredients sought by Mr. Bush.

But the outlook is now uncertain. Republicans and some moderate Democrats in Congress say they could not vote for any measure granting legal status to illegal immigrants.

Presidential politics appear to have pushed Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, to the right. Some conservatives, who are influential in selecting a Republican presidential nominee, say that illegal immigrants have taken jobs from Americans and should not be rewarded for their illegal behavior.

Speaking to dozens of Border Patrol agents, gathered here under a bright sun, Mr. Bush said: “We’ve got to resolve the status of millions of illegal immigrants already in the country. People who entered the country illegally should not be given amnesty. Amnesty is the forgiveness of an offense without penalty. I oppose amnesty, and I think most people in the United States Congress oppose amnesty.”

Mr. Bush, a former governor of Texas, said he was “working closely with Republicans and Democrats to find a practical answer that lies between granting automatic citizenship to every illegal immigrant and deporting every illegal immigrant.”

Under his proposal, Mr. Bush said, “illegal immigrants who have roots in our country and want to stay” could do so in some circumstances, if they paid fines and back taxes, learned English and showed they had worked here for a number of years.

Illegal immigrants could apply for citizenship. “Approval would not be automatic,” Mr. Bush said. “They would have to wait in line behind those who played by the rules and followed the law.”

Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, who teaches immigration law at the Cornell Law School, said if illegal immigrants had to wait their turn in this way, it might “take decades” for them to become citizens.

Administration officials estimate that 12 million illegal immigrants are in the United States and say the number has been growing by an average of 400,000 a year.

A White House draft proposal, circulated on Capitol Hill in the last two weeks, has angered many advocates of immigrants’ rights, who assert that it would require illegal immigrants to pay exorbitant fines and fees. The draft says the Bush administration would “bring illegal workers out of the shadows” by offering them a new type of document known as Z visas. These visas would last three years and would be “indefinitely renewable,” but would cost $3,500 each time.

The White House proposal would not establish a “special path to citizenship.” An illegal immigrant would have to return to his original country, file an application with a United States embassy or consulate and pay a fine — perhaps $10,000 — to become a lawful permanent resident.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts and a co-author of the immigration bill passed by the Senate last year, said no measure would be approved this year unless it had “strong Republican support.” Democrats said they were counting on the White House to deliver at least 25 Republican votes for the bill in the Senate and 70 in the House.

In response, Mr. Bush said Monday, “I’ve been working to bring Republicans and Democrats together to resolve outstanding issues so that Congress can pass a comprehensive bill and I can sign it into law this year.”

    Bush Ties Drop in Illegal Immigration to His Policies, NYT, 10.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/washington/10bush.html

Many presidents have used the recess option

5.4.2007
USA Today
By David Jackson

WASHINGTON — When President Bush decided this week that the Democratic-led Senate was playing politics with his nominees, he once again used powers as old as the U.S. Constitution to make recess appointments.

Bush ranks fourth among modern presidents in granting such appointments, bypassing the Senate 165 times to get his nominees in place, according to the Senate historian's office. Ronald Reagan holds the record with 243 appointments.

The Constitution authorized recess appointments so presidents could fill key vacancies during long periods of congressional inactivity, which was the norm in early U.S. history.

"The question is whether this is the politically wise thing to do," said Mark Rozell, a separation of powers specialist at George Mason University.

"It makes for a more difficult relationship with certain members of the Senate," he said.

Senate Democrats such as John Kerry of Massachusetts and Chris Dodd of Connecticut criticized the president's latest round of recess appointments, made Wednesday as Bush headed to Texas for Easter weekend.

The Senate has been on break for a week.

The disputed appointments:

•Sam Fox, ambassador to Belgium. Kerry cited Fox's $50,000 contribution to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that questioned his Vietnam service during the 2004 presidential campaign.

Fox's nomination was quietly withdrawn last week after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was poised to reject the Republican fundraiser for the diplomatic post.

Dodd said Thursday that Fox's appointment was "deceptive at best and illegal at worst," and he asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate. The senator questioned Fox's plan to serve without pay, citing federal laws prohibiting voluntary services.

•Andrew Biggs, deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, had objected to Biggs' support for private investment accounts within Social Security.

•Susan Dudley, as head of regulatory affairs for the Office of Management and Budget. Consumer groups such as Public Citizen criticized what they called Dudley's "hostility" to public health and environmental regulations.

"The president views recess appointments as an appropriate way to get people who are qualified into jobs that need to be filled," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

About Fox's appointment, which has generated the most controversy, Johndroe said: "It was clear that people were putting the politics over the policy of needing to get an ambassador into Brussels."

Like his predecessors, Bush has used most recess appointments for non-controversial posts such as on boards and commissions that dot the federal government.

The White House says Bush has made 171 recess appointments. That's because some people have been named to multiple, but related, jobs.

    Many presidents have used the recess option, UT, 5.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-05-bush-recess-option_N.htm

Bush Uses Recess to Fill Envoy Post and 2 Others

April 5, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

FORT IRWIN, Calif., April 4 — President Bush used the Congressional recess on Wednesday to push through his choice to be ambassador to Belgium and to fill two domestic policy positions, provoking Democratic ire with all three appointments.

The ambassadorship will be filled by Sam Fox, a major Republican donor who had withdrawn his name for the job in late March when it became clear that Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee were lining up against him.

Mr. Fox donated $50,000 to the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that opposed Senator John Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign. The group attacked Mr. Kerry’s record in the Vietnam War with advertising that included unsubstantiated accusations that he had not earned his war medals.

“It’s sad but not surprising that this White House would abuse the power of the presidency to reward a donor over the objections of the Senate,” Mr. Kerry said Wednesday in a statement. “Unfortunately, when this White House can’t win the game, they just change the rules, and America loses.”

Recess appointments let a president install people into jobs requiring Senate confirmation when Congress is out of session. In the current cases, the appointees can stay in place without Senate confirmation through 2008.

The White House announced the appointments as Mr. Bush visited an Army training base here and called upon Congress to drop a push by Democrats to attach timetables for withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq to approval for emergency war spending. Though Mr. Bush and the new Democratic leadership in Congress pledged just three months ago that they would work cooperatively, they are now on a collision course over the role of Congress in foreign policy and the administration’s dismissal of eight United States attorneys.

In another of the appointments on Wednesday, Mr. Bush named Andrew Biggs, a champion of privatization, as the deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration. Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, had said in February that he would not take up Mr. Biggs’s nomination, made in 2006, because of his stand on Social Security.

Mr. Baucus said on Wednesday, “Prospects for getting real Social Security reform anytime soon just took a big hit with this recess appointment.”

Democrats also complained about the appointment of Susan E. Dudley as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, a powerful position that involves review of regulations from major federal agencies.

Ms. Dudley has written that government regulation is not warranted “in the absence of a significant market failure,” alarming consumer and environmental groups. Mr. Bush nominated her in August and again in January, with Democrats vowing to block confirmation.

“Clearly, these are politically provocative acts,” said Sarah Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Democratic caucus in the House, referring to the three appointments.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, said that all of the appointees were qualified and that Democrats were to blame for forcing the president to resort to recess appointments. “We understand and respect the Senate’s process for confirming nominees,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that partisan politics sometimes gets in the way of cooperation.”

In a fourth recess appointment on Wednesday, Mr. Bush named Carol Waller Pope, a Democrat, to be a member of the Federal Labor Relations Authority. Ms. Pope was first appointed to the three-member board in 2000 and served until her term expired last year. Democrats and unions had urged the president to renominate her because otherwise the board had only two members, both Republicans.

Mr. Bush used his visit to the training site to renew his criticism of Democrats for their legislation tying future war spending to timetables for withdrawal.

Listing what he said was evidence of progress in Iraq, he said, “Just as the strategy is starting to make inroads, a narrow majority in the Congress passed legislation they knew all along I would not accept.”

    Bush Uses Recess to Fill Envoy Post and 2 Others, NYT, 5.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/washington/05bush.html

Editorial

More Than a Feeling

April 4, 2007
The New York Times

President Bush and his advisers have made a lot of ridiculous charges about critics of the war in Iraq: they’re unpatriotic, they want the terrorists to win, they don’t support the troops, to cite just a few. But none of these seem quite as absurd as President Bush’s latest suggestion, that critics of the war whose children are at risk are too “emotional” to see things clearly.

The direct target was Matthew Dowd, one of the chief strategists of Mr. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, who has grown disillusioned with the president and the war, which he made clear in an interview with Jim Rutenberg published in The Times last Sunday. But by extension, Mr. Bush’s comments were insulting to the hundreds of thousands of Americans whose sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and spouses have served or will serve in Iraq.

They are perfectly capable of forming judgments about the war, pro or con, on the merits. But when Mr. Bush was asked about Mr. Dowd during a Rose Garden news conference yesterday, he said, “This is an emotional issue for Matthew, as it is for a lot of other people in our country.”

Mr. Dowd’s case, Mr. Bush said, “as I understand it, is obviously intensified because his son is deployable.”

Over the weekend, two of Mr. Bush’s chief spokesmen, Dan Bartlett and Dana Perino, claimed that Mr. Dowd’s change of heart about the war was rooted in “personal” issues and “emotions,” and talked of his “personal journey.” In recent years, Mr. Dowd suffered the death of a premature twin daughter, and was divorced. His son is scheduled to serve in Iraq soon.

Mr. Dowd said his experiences were a backdrop to his reconsideration of his support of the war and Mr. Bush. There is nothing wrong with that, but there is something deeply wrong with the White House’s dismissing his criticism as emotional, as if it has no reasoned connection to Mr. Bush’s policies.

This form of attack is especially galling from a president who from the start tried to paint this war as virtually sacrifice-free: the Iraqis would welcome America with open arms, the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues — and the all-volunteer military would concentrate the sacrifice on only a portion of the nation’s families.

Mr. Bush’s comments about Mr. Dowd are a reflection of the otherworldliness that permeates his public appearances these days. Mr. Bush seems increasingly isolated, clinging to a fantasy version of Iraq that is more and more disconnected from reality. He gives a frightening impression that he has never heard any voice from any quarter that gave him pause, much less led him to rethink a position.

Mr. Bush’s former campaign aide showed an open-mindedness and willingness to adapt to reality that is sorely lacking in the commander in chief.

    More Than a Feeling, NYT, 4.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/opinion/04weds1.html

Bush Blames Democrats

for Impasse Over Iraq Bills

April 4, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, April 3 — The political brinkmanship over Iraq war spending intensified Tuesday, as President Bush said Congressional Democrats had “undercut the troops” by passing legislation that ties continued war financing to mandated timelines for the withdrawal of American combat units.

Mr. Bush used a morning news briefing to renew his promise to veto emergency war spending bills with the withdrawal provisions that have passed in the House and the Senate.

He blamed Democrats for a growing impasse, saying they had been irresponsible in pushing bills they knew he would not sign. “Instead of passing clean bills that fund our troops on the front lines,” he said, “the House and Senate have spent this time debating bills that undercut the troops.”

By speaking Tuesday from the Rose Garden, Mr. Bush was seeking to seize the stage in an increasingly heated standoff over war financing that carries political risks for both sides. Democrats immediately struck back, blaming the president for forcing a deadlock that has delayed the release of money for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We represent the American people’s views on this failed war,” Senator Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said in his home state, Nevada, where he toured a National Guard complex. Mr. Reid released a statement that said: “The president’s policies have failed, and his escalation endangers our troops and hurts our national security. Neither our troops nor the American people can afford this strategy any longer.”

The remarks from each side were among the most heated in the confrontation so far. They were made while Congress was in recess for the Easter holiday, but with Democrats unwilling to give Mr. Bush an open shot while they were away.

Mr. Bush warned that a failure by Congress to approve the $100 billion he had requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would prolong some tours in Iraq and shorten time at home between tours for others. “That is unacceptable to me,” he said. “And I believe it is unacceptable to the American people.

“It’s one thing to object to the policy, but it’s another thing when you have troops in harm’s way not to give them the funds they need,” he said.

Among the signs of Democrats fighting back are an online petition begun by the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, expressing opposition to the veto that Mr. Bush has threatened for the bills that would attach timelines for withdrawal to the release of the war financing. “Mr. President, please work with us,” Mrs. Clinton said in a statement on Tuesday. “Don’t veto the will of the American people.”

In his appearance on Tuesday, Mr. Bush alternately exhibited playfulness and annoyance, but issued a similarly pointed call for cooperation. “If Democrat leaders in the Congress are bent on making a political statement, then they need to send me this unacceptable bill as quickly as possible when they come back,” he said. “I’ll veto it, and then Congress can get down to the business of funding our troops without strings and without delay.”

Mr. Bush said during the news briefing that the wrangling over the language of the war financing bills threatened to have a serious effect on the troops themselves.

He said that if he did not receive a bill he could sign by mid-April — and he has said he can only sign a bill “with no strings attached” — then the Army would be forced to consider curtailing equipment purchases and repairs and delay the training of National Guard and Reserve units.

If the standoff goes into mid-May, he said, the Army would have to delay the training of active-duty units, which would affect tour schedules by prolonging the stays of personnel already in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Democrats have argued that Mr. Bush made no such complaint last year when Congress, then held by Republicans, did not approve an emergency war spending measure until late spring. And the bill in the House, they said, would mandate that the president follow Pentagon policy limiting deployments and requiring a set period of rest between deployments — one year for the Army; 210 days for the Marines — or obtain waivers to ignore them.

Each side is betting that it is correctly gauging the public mood. White House officials and Republican allies in Congress say they believe that the Democrats will lose the public if they overplay their position and are perceived to be putting troops at risk, while Democrats say election results that put them in power, and polls since, indicate that the public wants to pull out of Iraq and expects them to force a withdrawal.

“I think the voters in America want Congress to support our troops who are in harm’s way,” Mr. Bush said. “They don’t want politicians in Washington telling our generals how to fight a war.”

But even as he engaged in openly partisan battle, Mr. Bush at one point seemed to consciously back away from describing his opponents as “the Democrat Party,” a formulation that they take as a slight. “It’s irresponsible for the Democrat leadership — Democratic leadership — in Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds,” he said.

He was also faced with questions about recent critiques from his former allies: Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist of his 2004 campaign, who issued a broad critique of Mr. Bush in an interview last week, and Robert Novak, the conservative columnist who has called Mr. Bush extraordinarily isolated.

“I respect Matthew,” Mr. Bush said, “He was an integral part of my 2004 campaign.” But, noting that Mr. Dowd has a son in the Army who is awaiting deployment, Mr. Bush added, “I understand his anguish over war; I understand this is an emotional issue for Matthew, as it is for a lot of other people in our country.”

Mr. Bush seemed visibly annoyed when asked about Mr. Novak, saying first, “How did he define ‘isolated?’ ” But, he said, “I think you’re going to find that the White House and the Hill are going to work in close collaboration, starting with this supplemental” spending bill.

No immediate progress is expected. Mr. Bush noted that the Democrats “have left Washington for spring recess without finishing the work.” The president himself will travel to Crawford, Tex., on Wednesday night to begin his own Easter break.

    Bush Blames Democrats for Impasse Over Iraq Bills, NYT, 4.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/washington/04prexy.html

Bush Splits

With Congress and States

on Emissions

April 4, 2007
The New York Times
By FELICITY BARRINGER and WILLIAM YARDLEY

WASHINGTON, April 3 — A day after the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases, President Bush said he thought that the measures he had taken so far were sufficient.

But the court’s ruling was being welcomed by Congress and the states, which are already using the decision to speed their own efforts to regulate the gases that contribute to global climate change. As a result, Congress and state legislatures are almost certain to be the arenas for far-reaching and bruising lobbying battles.

Mr. Bush made it clear in remarks on Tuesday that he thought his proposal to increase automobile fuel efficiency was sufficient for the moment; he gave no indication he would ask the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions of heat-trapping gases.

“Whatever we do,” he said, “must be in concert with what happens internationally.” He added, “Unless there is an accord with China, China will produce greenhouse gases that will offset anything we do in a brief period of time.”

But with Congress and the states more determined than ever to act, some of the nation’s largest industries — including automobile manufacturers and the oil companies that make their gasoline, and electric utilities and the coal companies that fire many of their boilers — now face the increasingly certain prospect of expensive controls on emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common heat-trapping gas associated with climate change.

At least 300 bills have been filed in 40 states that address heat-trapping gases and climate change in some form, said Adela Flores-Brennan, a policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In Washington, Congress has already begun a process that would eventually apportion both the responsibility for cuts in emissions that could cost tens of billions of dollars and the benefits and incentives that could mean billions of dollars of new income.

“Obviously, nobody wants to bear a disproportionate share of the burden,” said Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the newly created House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. “It’s now going to be a multidimensional chess game with the planet’s future in the balance.”

The way legislation apportions emissions cuts among industries — and, as important, how the credits earned by companies that reduce emissions are allocated — will be the focus of the lobbying, said Mr. Markey and lobbyists for environmental groups and industry.

“It’s incumbent on everyone to roll their sleeves up, if they haven’t already, to deal seriously with this problem,” said Luke Popovich of the National Mining Association, the trade group for the coal mine operators who will be at the center of the lobbying. “If pain concentrates the mind, there will be more concentration on the issue now.”

Coal is the major source of electricity in more than half the states, and coal is the fuel most closely associated with high levels of emissions of carbon dioxide. And coal interests have a bipartisan audience. The United Mine Workers is a natural Democratic constituency, while the National Mining Association has been a reliable supporter of the Bush administration.

“There are differences within the industry,” Mr. Popovich said, “but we are allied in favor of a solution that preserves coal’s growth in the United States.”

Next to the electric-utility sector, which is responsible for about 40 percent of emissions of heat-trapping gases, Mr. Markey said, comes the transportation sector, which contributes roughly 30 percent.

The auto industry has long opposed increases in fuel-efficiency standards, which automatically mean a reduction in heat-trapping gases. The oil industry has resisted controls on carbon dioxide emissions. Until recently, the two industries, while occasionally sniping at each other, had avoided explicit endorsement of the regulation that was most feared by the other.

But, with the likelihood of Congressional action increasing, that informal nonaggression pact has ended. Executives of the Big Three auto companies testifying in the House last month explicitly supported regulation of carbon dioxide. And a senior oil industry executive earlier this year gave a speech advocating increases in fuel economy.

The Supreme Court found Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency had erred in justifying its decision not to regulate carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. The court said that by providing nothing more than a “laundry list of reasons not to regulate,” the agency had defied the Clean Air Act’s “clear statutory command.” The ruling also said that the agency could not sidestep its authority to regulate heat-trapping gases unless it could provide a scientific basis for its refusal to do so.

In Congress, controls on automobile emissions remain a work in progress. In more than a dozen states, beginning with California in 2002, they have become a fact — although these laws have been stayed pending legal challenges. Those challenges were greatly weakened, however, by the Supreme Court ruling.

“States are not going to wait,” said Dennis McLerran, executive director of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, created by Washington State. “States are going to continue to act on this. If there is some confusion from this or if it creates greater pressure on Congress, then that’s all to the good.”

Washington is among more than a dozen states that have followed California’s lead in setting goals to restrict carbon dioxide emissions, and it is one of five Western states that have formed an alliance to combat climate change. States in the Northeast have formed a similar alliance.

Several environmental leaders said the court decision could persuade still other states to pass climate-change legislation.

Terry Tamminen, the former secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and now a private consultant to states pursuing California-style caps on emissions, said he had recently worked with elected leaders in Wisconsin, South Carolina, Florida and Maryland. Some of these states are more conservative than states in the West and Northeast and have not been strongly associated with efforts to restrict pollution. The court ruling, Mr. Tamminen suggested, “will give cover for those Republicans who feel they need to take action.”

“They can say, ‘Look, the debate is now over,’ ” he said.

California has been in the vanguard, first with its bill to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicle tailpipes in 2002, and then with its landmark 2006 law requiring a 25 percent reduction in the state’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.

Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington have joined California to pursue a regional plan to cut emissions. The idea is to make it profitable for industries to pursue pollution reduction through cap-and-trade plans that would allow companies with emissions lower than the allowed caps to sell credits to companies that exceed them.

Most of the legislation in Congress follows the cap-and-trade model.

Outside the West and the Northeast, states are still finding their way. In North Carolina, government commissions are weighing measures like restricting auto emissions and establishing so-called renewable portfolios, which many states are proposing as a way to balance their energy supply between carbon-producing fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, and clean, renewable fuel sources like wind and solar power.

In Illinois, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich has proposed restricting carbon emissions to 60 percent of 1990 levels by the year 2050, said Steve Frenkel, an aide to the governor.

“You’ve seen a lot of leadership coming out of the coasts,” Mr. Frenkel said. “Looking in the Midwest, where there’s a lot of coal and industrial pollution, how we handle this here is important for how we handle this nationally.”

With about half the states getting at least 50 percent of their electric power from coal, Congress will have to wrestle with the disproportionate impact that climate change legislation could have around the country.

“You’ve got 35 senators reliably for a pretty strong program,” said David Doniger, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “How do you get that to 50 or 60? You have to get senators who come from states where coal is important, autos are important and agriculture is important.”

    Bush Splits With Congress and States on Emissions, NYT, 4.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/washington/04climate.html?hp

Bush Calls Iran’s

Capture of Britons ‘Inexcusable’

April 1, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:47 a.m. ET
The New York Times

CAMP DAVID, Md. (AP) -- President Bush on Saturday said Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines was ''inexcusable'' and called for Iran to ''give back the hostages'' immediately and unconditionally.

Bush said Iran plucked the sailors out of Iraqi waters. Iran's president said Saturday they were in Iranian waters and called Britain and its allies ''arrogant and selfish'' for not apologizing for trespassing.

''It's inexcusable behavior,'' Bush said at the Camp David presidential retreat, where he was meeting with the president of Brazil. ''Iran must give back the hostages. They're innocent. They did nothing wrong.''

It was the first time that Bush had commented publicly on the captured Britons. Washington has taken a low-key approach to avoid aggravating tensions over the incident and shaking international resolve to get Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program.

Bush did not answer a question about whether the United States would have reacted militarily if those captured had been Americans. The president said he supports British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts to find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, now in its second week.

Bush would not comment about Britain's options if Iran does not release the hostages, but he seemed to reject any swapping of the British captives for Iranians detained in Iraq.

''I support the prime minister when he made it clear there were no quid pro quos,'' Bush said.

Like Bush's words, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments were his most extensive on the crisis. They tracked tough talk from other Iranian officials, an indication that Tehran's position could be hardening.

''The British occupier forces did trespass our waters. Our border guards detained them with skill and bravery,'' Iran's official news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. ''But arrogant powers, because of their arrogant and selfish spirit, are claiming otherwise.''

Britain, however, appeared to be easing its stance, emphasizing its desire to talk with Iran about what it termed a regrettable situation.

''I think everyone regrets that this position has arisen,'' British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said at a European Union summit in Bremen, Germany. ''What we want is a way out of it.''

Iran appeared unreceptive to possible talks with Britain.

''Instead of apologizing over trespassing by British forces, the world arrogant powers issue statements and deliver speeches,'' Ahmadinejad told a crowd in southeastern Iran.

The British sailors were detained by Iranian naval units March 23 while patrolling for smugglers near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab, a waterway that has long been a disputed dividing line between Iraq and Iran. Britain also insists the sailors were in Iraqi waters.

In London on Saturday, the political wing of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen Khalq said the capture was planned in advance and carried out in retaliation for U.N. sanctions over Iran's nuclear program. The group is listed as a terrorist group by Britain, the U.S. and the European Union.

Blair has expressed disgust that the captured service members had been ''paraded and manipulated'' in video footage released by Iran. He warned Tehran that it faced increasing isolation if it did not free them.

Britain has frozen most contacts with Iran. The U.N. Security Council has expressed ''grave concern'' about the incident. The EU has demanded the sailors' unconditional release and warned of unspecified ''appropriate measures'' if Tehran does not comply -- a position the Iranian Foreign Ministry called ''bias and meddlesome.''

Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a professor of politics in Tehran's Allameh University, said he's convinced that Iran is prepared to stand its ground and insist that the British violated Iranian territory.

''Iran will seriously continue the case and will put them on trial,'' Bakhshayesh said. ''Only an apology by Britain can stop it. Iran thinks that Britons trespassed to test Iran's reaction, and now London is trying to isolate Tehran instead of apologizing.''

But British officials are hopeful that diplomacy can resolve the crisis. The Foreign Office confirmed Saturday that Britain had replied to a letter received earlier in this week from the Iranian embassy. It declined to reveal the nature of either letter.

''We have been exchanging letters with the Iranian government, and we will continue to conduct or diplomatic discussions in private,'' a spokesman said on the government's customary condition of anonymity.

Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London and Benjamin Harvey and Katarina Kratovac in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report.

    Bush Calls Iran’s Capture of Britons ‘Inexcusable’, NYT, 1.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Bush.html?hp

Ex-Aide Details

a Loss of Faith in the President

April 1, 2007
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

AUSTIN, Tex., March 29 — In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.

A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

“I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things,” he said. He added, “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”

In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him.

He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

“I’m a big believer that in part what we’re called to do — to me, by God; other people call it karma — is to restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have,” Mr. Dowd said. “Just being quiet is not an option when I was so publicly advocating an election.”

Mr. Dowd’s journey from true believer to critic in some ways tracks the public arc of Mr. Bush’s political fortunes. But it is also an intensely personal story of a political operative who at times, by his account, suppressed his doubts about his professional role but then confronted them as he dealt with loss and sorrow in his own life.

In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.

Mr. Dowd, 45, said he hoped in part that by coming forward he would be able to get a message through to a presidential inner sanctum that he views as increasingly isolated. But, he said, he holds out no great hope. He acknowledges that he has not had a conversation with the president.

Dan Bartlett, the White House counselor, said Mr. Dowd’s criticism is reflective of the national debate over the war.

“It’s an issue that divides people,” Mr. Bartlett said. “Even people that supported the president aren’t immune from having their own feelings and emotions.”

He said he disagreed with Mr. Dowd’s description of the president as isolated and with his position on withdrawal. He said Mr. Dowd, a friend, has “sometimes expressed these sentiments” in private conversation, though “not in such detail.”

During the interview with Mr. Dowd on a slightly overcast afternoon in downtown Austin, he was a far quieter man than the cigar-chomping general that he was during Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign.

Soft-spoken and somewhat melancholy, he wore jeans, a T-shirt and sandals in an office devoid of Bush memorabilia save for a campaign coffee mug and a photograph of the first couple with his oldest son, Daniel. The photograph was taken one week before the 2004 election, and one day before Daniel was to go to boot camp.

Over Mexican food at a restaurant that was only feet from the 2000 campaign headquarters, and later at his office just up the street, Mr. Dowd recounted his political and personal journey. “It’s amazing,” he said. “In five years, I’ve only traveled 300 feet, but it feels like I’ve gone around the world, where my head is.”

Mr. Dowd said he decided to become a Republican in 1999 and joined Mr. Bush after watching him work closely with Bob Bullock, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Texas, who was a political client of Mr. Dowd and a mentor to Mr. Bush.

“It’s almost like you fall in love,” he said. “I was frustrated about Washington, the inability for people to get stuff done and bridge divides. And this guy’s personality — he cared about education and taking a different stand on immigration.”

Mr. Dowd established himself as an expert at interpreting polls, giving Karl Rove, the president’s closest political adviser, and the rest of the Bush team guidance as they set out to woo voters, slash opponents and exploit divisions between Democratic-leaning states and Republican-leaning ones.

In television interviews in 2004, Mr. Dowd said that Mr. Kerry’s campaign was proposing “a weak defense,” and that the voters “trust this president more than they trust Senator Kerry on Iraq.”

But he was starting to have his own doubts by then, he said.

He said he thought Mr. Bush handled the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks well but “missed a real opportunity to call the country to a shared sense of sacrifice.”

He was dumbfounded when Mr. Bush did not fire Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after revelations that American soldiers had tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Several associates said Mr. Dowd chafed under Mr. Rove’s leadership. Mr. Dowd said he had not spoken to Mr. Rove in months but would not discuss their relationship in detail.

Mr. Dowd said, in retrospect, he was in denial.

“When you fall in love like that,” he said, “and then you notice some things that don’t exactly go the way you thought, what do you do? Like in a relationship, you say ‘No no, no, it’ll be different.’ ”

He said he clung to the hope that Mr. Bush would get back to his Texas style of governing if he won. But he saw no change after the 2004 victory.

He describes as further cause for doubt two events in the summer of 2005: the administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina and the president’s refusal, around the same time that he was entertaining the bicyclist Lance Armstrong at his Crawford ranch, to meet with the war protester Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq.

“I had finally come to the conclusion that maybe all these things along do add up,” he said. “That it’s not the same, it’s not the person I thought.”

He said that during his work on the 2006 re-election campaign of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, which had a bipartisan appeal, he began to rethink his approach to elections.

“I think we should design campaigns that appeal not to 51 percent of the people,” he said, “but bring the country together as a whole.”

He said that he still believed campaigns must do what it takes to win, but that he was never comfortable with the most hard-charging tactics. He is now calling for “gentleness” in politics. He said that while he tried to keep his own conduct respectful during political combat, he wanted to “do my part in fixing fissures that I may have been part of.”

His views against the war began to harden last spring when, in a personal exercise, he wrote a draft opinion article and found himself agreeing with Mr. Kerry’s call for withdrawal from Iraq. He acknowledged that the expected deployment of his son Daniel was an important factor.

He said the president’s announcement last fall that he was re-nominating the former United Nations ambassador John R. Bolton, whose confirmation Democrats had already refused, was further proof to him that Mr. Bush was not seeking consensus with Democrats.

He said he came to believe Mr. Bush’s views were hardening, with the reinforcement of his inner circle. But, he said, the person “who is ultimately responsible is the president.” And he gradually ventured out with criticism, going so far as declaring last month in a short essay in Texas Monthly magazine that Mr. Bush was losing “his gut-level bond with the American people,” and breaking more fully in this week’s interview.

“If the American public says they’re done with something, our leaders have to understand what they want,” Mr. Dowd said. “They’re saying, ‘Get out of Iraq.’ ”

Mr. Dowd’s friends from Mr. Bush’s orbit said they understood his need to speak out. “Everyone is going to reflect on the good and the bad, and everything in between, in their own way,” said Nicolle Wallace, communications director of Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign, a post she also held at the White House until last summer. “And I certainly respect the way he’s doing it — these are his true thoughts from a deeply personal place.” Ms. Wallace said she continued to have “enormous gratitude” for her years with Mr. Bush.

Mr. Bartlett, the White House counselor, said he understood, too, though he said he strongly disagreed with Mr. Dowd’s assessment. “Do we know our critics will try to use this to their advantage? Yes,” he said. “Is that perfect? No. But you can respectfully disagree with someone who has been supportive of you.”

Mr. Dowd does not seem prepared to put his views to work in 2008. The only candidate who appeals to him, he said, is Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, because of what Mr. Dowd called his message of unity. But, he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work.”

He added, “I do feel a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world.”

Ex-Aide Details a Loss of Faith in the President, NYT, 1.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/washington/01adviser.html