Who gives a damn about what McClellan has to say?

While McClellan is cashing in on his new tell-all book, which tells us nothing new by a man who didn't shape Bush administration policy in any way but merely communicated it, Christipher Hitchens points us towards a book by former White House policymaker Douglas Feith...

The Bush administration: ABOVE THE LAW

Another one of John Yoo's masterpieces
Not like we didn't know this before, but this time it's official! The George W. Bush administration is ABOVE FEDERAL LAW. The statutes and limitations applying to us mere mortals do not apply to the office of the commander-in-chief or his subordinates. Imagine that.

The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.
...
Sent to the Pentagon's general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers.

Oh yeah, and they don't torture either.

As Andrew Sullivan recently stated,

One day this president and vice-president will be prosecuted for war crimes.

US intelligence chief contradicts White House on water-boarding's status as torture

BBC News:

US national intelligence chief Mike McConnell has said the interrogation technique of water-boarding "would be torture" if he was subjected to it.
...
He told the New Yorker there would be a "huge penalty" for anyone using it if it was ever determined to be torture.
The US attorney-general has declined to rule on whether the method is torture.
...
In December, the House of Representatives approved a bill that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation techniques such as water-boarding.
President George W Bush has threatened to veto the bill, which would require the agency to follow the rules adopted by the US Army and abide by the Geneva Conventions, if the Senate passes it.

The administration seems to believe that torture works as a means of getting information. On the contrary, the assertion that harsh interrogation works is proved false by many studies. In addition public knowledge of torture — which is inevitable in such a high-profile 'war' — hurts the world's perception of the US and breeds more terrorists. But what right does the US have to police the world and detain foreigners as it pleases, especially not in anything close to a war zone?

Bush tells everyone to back off on CIA tape probe

CNN:

The Bush administration wants a federal court and congressional committees not to pursue investigations into the destruction of videotapes showing CIA interrogations of two al Qaeda suspects.

It says the inquiries would interfere with an ongoing probe by the Justice Department in collaboration with the CIA.

Defense attorneys for some terror suspects have asked U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy to look into whether the tapes' destruction violated a June order.

The measure requires the government to preserve evidence and information regarding detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

A bit disturbing, but not at all surprising. (See background.) The Justice Department has also dodged questions on the destruction of CIA tapes showing extreme interrogation — e.g. torture. The White House is strongly against all forms of oversight. One wonders what it has to hide...

The argument for speed over law in the fight against terrorism

Should speed trump legality in America's 'war on terror'?
Just as Elaine Scarry stated that the assertion that speed is necessary for security — e.g. 'not having time' to go through the courts or get a formal declaration war, which has not been done in the US since WWII — has taken power away from the people and given it to an increasingly centralized government (see "Citizenship in Emergency"), which doesn't always do the best thing with its power, it is easy to make the case that Vice President Dick Cheney and allies, such as close advisor David Addington, used speed and the daunting enemy of terrorism as an excuse for the creation of the unitary executive, among other things. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the White House went as far as ignoring Congress, the courts, and even its own departments (e.g. Justice) to get the national security policy it wanted. The need to counter terrorism in a speedy manner has been used by the Bush administration to justify programs like unauthorized NSA domestic wiretapping (ignoring the FISA court), or interrogation tactics that ignore the ruling of Congress and international law.

Defending the homeland has become a battle against existing expectations of legal due process, governmental checks and balances, and personal freedom. As former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith told Frontline,

[The Bush administration] decided in the fall of 2001 that speed was more important than these other values. I can't say in the fall of 2001 that they were wrong. I don't know exactly what they thought they were going to do in military commissions, but early on the imperatives to get things done trumped the normal processes of deliberation and consultation. In emergencies that often happens. I think as time went on, the circumvention of the normal processes of deliberation and consultation, maybe the balance tipped; that speed and quick decision making may have been able to go slower on that in exchange for more deliberation and consultation.

Detention and torture of terrorism suspects and warrant-less wiretapping, two infamous tools of the 'war on terror', both of which have been direct results of an argument for speed in the fight against an often-invisible, unorthodox enemy. The courts were too slow and Congress' restrictions too inconvenient for 'aggressive interrogation' not to be used on terrorism suspects — the information needed to be gotten, and fast, from the terrorists, supporters say. FISA was bypassed in the case of the wiretapping; the program's defenders said that the FISA court was too slow, and thus, the White House had to act without the consent of neither the legislature nor the judiciary. Communications are moving too fast for judicial oversight; terrorist attacks need to be prevented, beats the drum of former Bush administration legal architect John Yoo. Thanks to Democratic timidity, the NSA wiretapping program was made legal over the summer.

If America is to continue as a (semi-)functioning democracy, her citizens should not let their rights be subdued for the sake of speed or supposed security. Scarry wrote in her article that,

The most frequent argument used to excuse the setting aside of the Constitution is that the pace of modern life simply does not allow time for obtaining the authorization of Congress, let alone the full citizenry.

Over six years after the 11 September attacks, speed has become the excuse for countless questionable actions taken by the president and his staff. No longer should anyone fall for it.

The hyped-up Iranian nuclear threat

Not to rain on the hawks' parade, but apparently Iran stopped nuclear weapons production back in 2003.

In a blow to Bush administration hawks demanding military strikes on Iran, a US intelligence report reveals that Tehran's secret nuclear weapons programme was shut down four years ago.

The finding which has come as a surprise to friends and foes of the US concluded: "We do not know whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." That is in sharp contrast to an intelligence report two years ago that stated Iran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons".

US officials said the report showed that the Bush administration was right to conclude that Tehran intends to develop nuclear weapons in the long term. They also said that Iran was forced to end its secret programme because of financial sanctions and diplomacy backed up with the threat of force.

Perhaps peaceful means such as diplomacy and sanctions (creating political pressures within a country) work after all.

The report is sure to cause a stir within the hawkish White House, but the NIE did put in a few good words about the Bush administration, just to ease the strain of conflicting views.

Here are some facts about the National Intelligence Estimate report.

President Bush, after spending years raising the hype around Iran's nuclear program, found a way to twist the tension-relieving report into just another warning about the Iranian threat. Never mind the evidence his jousts with Iran over nukes have been relying on have been pulled out from under him; I am sure hawks are not too pleased either with the recent intelligence report.

If anything it is good news that there is less pressure on all parties to make a move in the Iran nuke stalemate. But even though Iran may have stopped developing nuclear weapons for now, it's good to keep up the pressure, says a Guardian commentator. Iran may have suspended its program, but that doesn't mean it cannot, or will not, start it up again. What Bush predicted as WWIII with Iran seems very unlikely at this point.

Another letdown for civil liberties... thanks to the Democrats?

So they fight a largely (purely for some) symbolic, somewhat shallow battle over Iraq, but don't bother to stand up to the Bush administration when American civil liberties are threatened? Whose side are the Democrats on? Dems still seem to be worried more about appearing 'soft' on fighting terror than concerns of basic American freedoms.

Only if one views the 'war on terrorism' as a real war that is serious enough that the US's fighting in it is allowed to chip away at the bedrock of American liberty (i.e. the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution) can one truly not see how troubling the wiretapping expansion promoted by both political parties is.

From today's New York Times:

Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency.

Administration officials say they are confident they will win approval of the broadened authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess. Some Democratic officials concede that they may not come up with enough votes to stop approval.

As the debate over the eavesdropping powers of the National Security Agency begins anew this week, the emerging measures reflect the reality confronting the Democrats.

Although willing to oppose the White House on the Iraq war, they remain nervous that they will be called soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on gathering intelligence.

A Democratic bill to be proposed on Tuesday in the House would maintain for several years the type of broad, blanket authority for N.S.A. eavesdropping that the administration secured in August for six months.

Because of their fear of being called wimps in the 'war on terrorism', the Democrats are once again caving into supporting a horrible Bush administration program (this same thing happened last summer too with the approval of the then-illegal White House NSA spying program). Great job guys; you've really served the people who gave you the majority in both houses of Congress well!

It's time for oversight over the Bush administration; it's time for government contractors in Iraq as well as at home to admit and rectify their misdeeds; it's time for the US to admit errors and mistakes too; it's time for the transparency a working liberal democracy requires to shine through this White House, this Congress, and the courts. If only one of the two major political parties would fight for what the United States needs.

Debate over US domestic spying 'costs lives'

Apparently legislative investigations into the executive's more questionable programs cost lives and allow the terrorists to win.

More fear-mongering by the Bush administration. Haven't we had enough executive expansion? Too many American civil liberties have been quashed in the name of fighting terror.

Yesterday, in his usual 'do this or the terrorists win' attitude, President Bush urged Congress to expand and continue to allow the domestic surveillance his administration has fought so hard to keep secret, free of oversight, and far-reaching. Today, his intelligence director laid out more defense for the program.

Reuters:

A debate in Congress over eavesdropping on terrorism suspects will cost American lives by exposing intelligence techniques, the Bush administration's spy chief said on Thursday.
...
"What this dialogue and debate has allowed those who wish us harm to do, is to understand significantly more about how we were targeting their communications," McConnell told the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.

Asked if debates had cost U.S lives, he said, "They will."

Normally I'd look past this extreme rhetoric. I've gotten used to this stuff spewing out of the White House — it is politics, after all. However slanting the issue by saying that just the debate over the wiretapping program puts lives at risk is going too far. This emphasizes the need for Congress to act with scrutiny and not turn a blind eye.

McConnell said a couple days ago that the need for more domestic surveillance was elevated not only because of terrorists, but because China and Russia are allegedly spying at the United States at Cold War levels.

So yeah, let's get rid of democracy and the tiny bit of oversight over the White House, or else the terrorists win! This is an agreement for security over freedom; it's amazing that President Bush can still stand and say that he is defending freedom. If important, democratic political debate gives information to the terrorists, that is probably information they already know. Plus, that's one of the downsides of democracy: transparency and freedom can cut away at security. But a democracy is founded on the principles of holding the principles of freedom over the often-misused power-gaining excuse of security.

For now the White House should be happy. Congress rubber-stamped their controversial NSA warrantless domestic wiretapping plan back in August. While the debate continues, the administration will continue to say lives are being lost. It appears it wants no transparency, and no power checks. This is a disturbing thing coming from a branch of a democratic government. This isn't the way to go about securing the nation. It's a way for the administration to once again spin the debate over terrorism for its own gain.

If terror suspects really need to be monitored — which, I agree, they do — then why not get judicial oversight? I mean, that's what the courts are for. At least true congressional oversight is needed. But the administration has time and time again stopped even Republican lawmakers from doing their jobs and knowing what's going on in their own government. One example: after agreeing to several one-sided deals on a variety of issues, former Senate Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) is growing increasingly frustrated with the Bush administration's lack of transparency. When there are probes and investigations, they are overly politicized by both sides, and congresspeople end up with only rhetoric and biased assertions, not statement's telling them how laws like the NSA surveillance program are being carried out. They hear that their investigation costs lives; they are not told the hows or whys.

It's time for policymakers to stand up to this unitary executive, not in stubbornness or for shallow political reasons, but because it's their job.

The 'surge' effect (part 3)

This is the final installment (for now) in the The 'surge' effect blog post series. This post focuses on the political effects of the term "surge". See also Part 1, which focuses on the origin of the "surge", and Part 2, which looks at the word's connotations.

In part, the press is to blame for the entrance of "surge" and "war on terror" into the mainstream. As the previously-mentioned CJR article says,

It’s the prerogative of any president and his spinners to play this kind of word game. But the press has a responsibility not to be taken in by it, to be able to separate out an explication of a thing from the sheen the administration places on it. The consequences are extreme. Look at the “war on terror.” The press, for the most part, absorbed this descriptive term and used it uncritically for the last five years. But, as Jacob Levenson wondered in the pages of CJR two years ago, “It’s reasonable to ask, for instance, that if the war on terror had been called the war on Islamic extremism, would the American public have supported the invasion of a country, like Iraq, with a secular government? Similarly, had it been called the war for global democracy, would the Patriot Act have become law? What if it hadn’t been called a war at all? Journalists, in other words, must resist employing political jargon — it tends to shortcut analysis in favor of mobilization.”
...
[The] “surge” has become, in the last few weeks, part of the public discourse on Iraq (i.e., as one anonymous Republican strategist told the New York Times, “They’re going to cast it as a choice between withdrawal and surge”). The word has the benefit of seeming active, strong, and quick - a surge is a lightening strike, over and done, the opposite of, say, a quagmire. The other advantage is the other words that “surge” replaces, like “escalation,” with its Vietnam-era connotation."

Since that article's publication in November, "surge" has appeared less and less within quotes as it enters the mainstream, like "war on terror" did years ago — and it has made a difference in the Iraq debate in the United States.

In January 2007, progressive blog Think Progress compiled a list of news articles, mapping out the use of "surge" in the mainstream media. What began in November 2006 as a description for a "temporary" elevation in American forces in Iraq eventually defined a long-term Iraq war strategy. As the article noted, the media "has continued to use the term "surge" even though its definition has fundamentally changed." But does the spin of "troop increase" to "surge" really make a difference in the eyes of the public? A CBS News poll dated around the time that the "surge" buzz peaked showed that 45 percent of Americans were in favor of the "surge" (aka troop increase), and 48 percent opposed. The same survey said that a mere 18 percent of the public were in favor of increasing the number of US troops in Iraq. From those numbers we can infer that just a simple change in wording can result in a difference of 27 percentage points, thus the prevalent use of the term "surge" does work in the White House's favor.

In the closing of his essay "Politics and the English Language", George Orwell writes, “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” The Bush administration is using that political rhetoric to justify many of its policy decisions, especially when war is involved. Even though the "surge" isn't actually a surge, it will be continued to be used by the news media, political pundits, and some policy-makers, all to the benefit of the White House. Like "war on terror", "surge" is political language at its finest — for those who benefit from its use, that is. However, the labeling of the long-term battle against terrorism as a "war", associating that "war" with the one in Iraq, and the long-term troop escalation and operation in Iraq as a "surge" could all come back to bite the White House. The public might expect the "war" to end like any other and will be skeptical of open-ended plans (i.e., the fear instilled by declaring a war against terror will evaporate and impatience will replace it), and will want the "surge" to show fairly quick results. It is a surge, after all.

The 'surge' effect (part 2)

The tale of how the "surge" became the surge is similar to how the "war on terror" became the war on terror: the political language seeped into the mainstream as commonly accepted expressions. Once the media started using them, those political phrases dominated in the public arena. (Albeit, the 'war on terror' became much more commonly seen outside of quotes than 'surge', and its connotations and political effects have been stronger.) The term "surge" is more than just a neutral catch-phrase used by the White House and the media, though opposed by the Pentagon — probably on technical grounds. Rather, it is a variation of the Bush administration's newspeak and Iraq war spin.

Presently, the "surge" has gotten to a point where it isn't even within quotation marks in a news article, similar to what happened with the also politically-spun "war on terror". Unlike that "war", the surge has a less evident political bias in favor of the Bush administration. But still, says Gal Beckerman in a very informative Columbia Journalism Review article, words like 'surge' are worthy of labels of Orwellian proportions:

The Bush administration has aggressively refined the art of distilling any new initiative presented to the public into a single word or phrase that at once defines the idea while obscuring its various downsides. Orwell coined the everlasting expression for this: newspeak. The phrase “war on terror” is perhaps the administration’s crowning achievement in this realm.

With the post-9/11 "war on terror", the Bush administration created a public mentality of wartime and exploited those fears for its own political gain. The "war on terror" gained widespread usage and allowed the spin-doctors in the White House a great advantage: tilt the debate their way by using phrases like the one implying a global fight against an omnipresent terrorist enemy. In a war there are two sides, and if people didn't support Bush, so the logic went, then they must support the terrorists. The same thing applies to the "new way forward" and the "surge". If one doesn't support the plan, isn't one against progress? The "war on terror", of course, isn't a real war. But presenting it as one allowed the Bush White House more political power and popularity.

How is using the term "surge" any different from "troop increase" or even "escalation"? Surge implies a short-term effort that produces an effect, not connoting the dryness of 'troop increase'. A surge not only suggests an increase numerically. Surge sounds positive, and its definition implies upward movement, a rush of progress. A linguistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, George Lakoff, argued against the Bush administration's "framing" of the Iraq war debate for its own benefit: "The word "surge" indicates a short-term increase in force that has an effect and naturally goes back to its previous level. . . . To use the word "surge" is to subscribe to Bush's misleading frame." Furthermore, using "surge" in place of "troop increase" doesn't directly remind people of the fact that more men and women in uniform will have to be sent to a place where reports of deaths flow into the news stream daily. "Surge" also sounds a bit like "insurgent", linguist Deborah Tannen notes. The need to take one's mind off of the fact more soldiers will be sent to Iraq and remembering that the fight is against the insurgents and terrorists is a reminder the White House never ceases to vocalize, making "surge" the ideal word for its Iraq plan.

On the other hand, "surge" could actually imply a hike in the number of troops sent to Iraq, something Americans are hesitant about. A surge of progress, or a surge of American lives to be lost? The word at least carries a subliminal effect, which explains why few have questioned its use to represent such a unpopular policy. Some in the public may not even realize the political connotations "surge" and other political catch-phrases carry. "New way forward", on the other hand, is obvious in its connotation. "Stay the course" is a warning to those in the anti-war fringe to stick to the plan, or things will get much worse in Mesopotamia, not to mention the terrorists will win. Those "defeatists" who want the terrorists to win are accused by the White House and GOP of advocating "cut and run". By and large, the White House uses the propaganda-esque "new way forward", the media uses the spin-worthy "surge", and the Democrats use either "surge" or the slightly negative-sounding "escalation" to describe the increase of 21,500 US troops in Iraq.

See also: Part 1.

The 'surge' effect (part 1)

The 'surge' effect: how one word shaped the politically-charged national debate on Iraq in the United States.

How did "surge" become the de facto term for "troop increase"? Why is that semantic change politically significant? To answer those and other related questions, one must explore the origins and effects of the "surge" — a part of the "new way forward" for "success" in Iraq and the "war on terror". The use of the term "surge" in place of "troop increase" is a way for the George W. Bush administration and its political allies to give a more positive spin on what is really an increase in American troops deployed to a dreary arena of war — Iraq. The common use of "surge", and its entrance into the mainstream media (and even this blog), displays parallels to what happened with the phrase "war on terror" in the months after 9/11.

Finding the exact origin of "surge" is tougher than it sounds. It seems that the word first had prominent usage in mid-December 2006. In early January 2007, the phrase gained even more popularity. Speculation about President Bush announcing a plan for an increase of American troops in Iraq reached its peak around January 9th, and a day later the president finally announced his plan for a "new way forward" that had been months in the making. However, he did not once use the word "surge" in his Address to the Nation that day. The "surge option" as we know it was first discussed in a New York Times article by David Cloud on November 21st, two days after an article reported Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) hope for a "short-term surge" (he had been pushing for a similar strategy since August). Articles prior to that, notably Thomas Ricks' November 20th scoop, often spoke of a "short-term" troop increase to be recommended to the White House by military experts.

The godfather of the so-called surge option is neoconservative Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank close to the White House. When interviewed on On the Media about the allegation that the White House is taking advantage of the contradictory "surge", he said that his plan entitles a sustained surge of sorts, a long-term effort — not the kind of action people take the word to mean; he blames the media for being misleading and using the term "loosely". Was the "surge" an invention of the media, not a political tool of the White House? The answer is unclear, but what is known is that the Bush administration definitely took advantage of the word and its connotations.

Gonzo's gone

Just heard the news this morning...

Washington Post:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales announced his resignation today, ending a controversial cabinet tenure that included clashes with Congress over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and over the use of warrantless wiretaps in the war on terror.

About time!

Gonzales will step down on Sept. 17. In a brief statement, he called his 13 years in public service a "remarkable journey," but he gave no explanation about why he chose to resign now after resisting months of pressure to quit.
...
"I do not find your testimony credible," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) told him flatly in a July hearing on the surveillance program.

"Under this Attorney General and this President, the Department of Justice suffered a severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system to be corrupted by political influence," Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), said as news of Gonzales' resignation circulated. "I hope the Attorney General's decision will be a step toward getting to the truth about the level of political influence this White House wields over the Department of Justice and toward reconstituting its leadership."

(The Washington Post article also brings up the matter of Gonzales' Hispanic ethnicity several times. Honestly it shouldn't be such a big deal.)

Many Bush loyalists didn't even support Gonzales as his plight increased this year due to questions of competence and ethics by Democrats and Republicans alike. For the last few months, it seems as if only, and I mean only, the White House supported the attorney general, if that.

The Democratically-fueled congressional investigations into the practices of the White House — e.g. the politically-motivated firing of US attorneys, illegal anti-terror tactics, etc. — are getting into murkier political waters. Key Bush administration aide Karl Rove, who departed earlier this month, was also under pressure from long overdue probes into this secretive administration.

The trend of major administration figures leaving shows the dire — if not confusing — state the White House is in. When these figures leave, they also seem to be vague as to why they are leaving and who made the decision; additional details remain as secret, as is the standard with this non-transparent government.

We may never know the full details of the many devious plots both Rove and Gonzales have been charged with spearheading, but there is one question we can expect an answer to, albeit not immediately: Who is going to replace Gonzales? Since the White House is so politically weak, even with its own party (remember also presidential appointee confirmation voting has also been along party lines and the Democrats have a rough majority in Congress), it might be a struggle to get another poor, un-judicial, un-independent AG confirmed, at least not at the yes-man level Bush will want them at.

technorati tags: gonzales, alberto+gonzales, bush

Smile! You're on satellite camera

The United States is moving up in the world in terms of state surveillance...

The Bush administration has approved a plan to expand domestic access to some of the most powerful tools of 21st-century spycraft, giving law enforcement officials and others the ability to view data obtained from satellite and aircraft sensors that can see through cloud cover and even penetrate buildings and underground bunkers.

A program approved by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security will allow broader domestic use of secret overhead imagery beginning as early as this fall, with the expectation that state and local law enforcement officials will eventually be able to tap into technology once largely restricted to foreign surveillance.

Administration officials say the program will give domestic security and emergency preparedness agencies new capabilities in dealing with a range of threats, from illegal immigration and terrorism to hurricanes and forest fires. But the program, described yesterday by the Wall Street Journal, quickly provoked opposition from civil liberties advocates, who said the government is crossing a well-established line against the use of military assets in domestic law enforcement.

Does its implications against freedom cancel out the good it does for security (see security v. freedom); or is there nothing to worry about? And what is up with the WSJ getting all these major political news scoops?

Although the federal government has long permitted the use of spy-satellite imagery for certain scientific functions -- such as creating topographic maps or monitoring volcanic activity -- the administration's decision would provide domestic authorities with unprecedented access to high-resolution, real-time satellite photos.
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Oversight of the department's use of the overhead imagery data would come from officials in the Department of Homeland Security and from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and would consist of reviews by agency inspectors general, lawyers and privacy officers.

No warrants are needed for this kind of spying, and yet it is my personal view that the NSA wiretapping program is probably a larger infringement on civil liberties. However, both these spy programs can be easily abused for political motives because the oversight comes from those within the Bush administration. Many of the people overlooking these spy programs, such as officials in the DHS and DoJ, have already proven themselves to be political appointees, cronies, incompetent yes-men, and by no means objective like they should be. And all they ever seem to want is more power to spy on Americans.

I think it is a good idea to update America's satellite imaging system, just as I believe a FISA for the 21st century was a good goal, but the lack of oversight is alarming for both of these surveillance programs. At least the NSA program will have audits and this new spy program will be reviewed by a number of people who hopefully will prevent abuse of this important and slightly worrying technology. Still, it is up to the courts, Congress, and, ultimately, the people to keep the executive in check, and that includes its more sensitive programs.

Bush's 'brain' has left the house

...or at least he will by the end of August
This morning we learned of yet another devastating blow to the Bush administration. No, it had nothing to do with Iraq or Bush's fishing trip with Sarkozy — it's bigger than that.

'The decider' looks to have lost his decider: Mr. Karl Rove, king of Bush advisers and duke of GOP strategy.

A few hours ago, Rupert Murdoch's new conservative crown jewel, the Wall Street Journal, broke what will probably be the biggest American political story of the week: Karl Rove's resignation.

"He will move back up in the polls," says Mr. Rove, who interrupts my reference to Mr. Bush's 30% approval rating by saying it's heading close to "40%," and "higher than Congress."

Looking ahead, he adds, "Iraq will be in a better place" as the surge continues. Come the autumn, too, "we'll see in the battle over FISA" -- the wiretapping of foreign terrorists -- "a fissure in the Democratic Party." Also in the fall, "the budget fight will have been fought to our advantage," helping the GOP restore, through a series of presidential vetoes, its brand name on spending restraint and taxes.

As for the Democrats, "They are likely to nominate a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate" by the name of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Holding the White House for a third term is always difficult given the pent-up desire for change, he says, but "I think we've got a very good chance to do so."

If that quinella pays off, however, Mr. Rove will have to savor it from somewhere other than his West Wing office. He's resigning effective Aug. 31 -- 14 years after he began working with Mr. Bush on his campaign for Texas governor, 10 years after they began planning a White House run, and after 79 months in the political cockpit of a tumultuous presidency.

"I just think it's time," he says, adding that he first floated the idea of leaving to Mr. Bush a year ago. His friends confirm he had been talking about it with others even earlier. But Democrats took Congress, and he didn't want to depart on that sour note. He then thought he'd leave after the State of the Union, but the Iraq and immigration fights beckoned. Finally, Chief of Staff Josh Bolten told senior White House aides that if they stayed past a certain point, they were obliged to remain to Jan. 20, 2009.

"There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family," Mr. Rove says.

Splitting the party poles
Rove is the master of polarizing America and making the political discourse all the more irrational. He led the effort of painting the Democrats as weak on national security, an allegation they still even cave into Bush and break the Constitution to fend off. He learned how to push the right partisan buttons in his years in the White House; he pushed those buttons quite well. Besides getting caught up in the Plame investigation and a silly dance (MC Rove!) on YouTube (and a series of congressional probes), Rove pretty much got away with all the trash he inserted into the beltway.

As the debate gets going, Mr Bush and the Republicans will surely miss Mr Rove, who was quick to seek partisan advantage by tarnishing Democrats’ reputation on security. This injected added acrimony into American politics, such as when in June 2005 Mr Rove accused the Democrats of being fainthearted in their response to terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001.

Questions to consider on the implications of this latest development in the George W. Bush presidential saga:

What will the departure of key political guru Karl Rove mean for the Bush administration?

What are the reasons behind his resignation?

Will this throw the embattled President Bush into more political chaos?

Will the departure of the 'architect' cause the West Wing to cave in?

The Guardian Newsblog has a nice roundup of who's saying what about the resignation of Rove.

And who says everything bad happens in August? Take that David Plotz of Slate! Karl Rove leaving is most certainly a good thing for America. Of course he will probably enter the private sector and further muck up the nation's political lobby...

karl rove

Congress legalizes Bush's NSA wiretapping program

An inept Congress hands Bush his NSA wiretapping program legalized on a silver platter...
Quiz time! What is the one of the last things Congress did before taking a four-week August recess? Hand more power to the Bush administration and slash away at the US Constitution, of course! Another sting to civil liberties courtesy of the 'war on terrorism' and the American government. Enter the Protect America Act of 2007 (Senate vote info; House votes). All links in this post are, in my opinion, quite important to understanding this complex issue.

Secrecy, spying, and a false 'war'
Why did the United States Congress cave in to (NYT) President George Bush on the expanded wiretapping bill? If this were the Clinton years I might think secret deal or tradeoff (i.e. you pass my stuff and I don't veto yours). However, that system hasn't been as prolific in the relationship between Bush's White House and the majority-Democratic Congress.

One would think this new bill would finally resolve the legality of the Bush administration's controversial domestic surveillance program. How could any self-respecting legislator approve it — let alone a Democrat? The answer appears to be fear, on both sides, especially Democratic, of appearing soft on terrorism.

The Dems have already spent — for better or for worse — so much political energy on symbolic jabs at the Bush administration on the subject of Iraq. But when it comes to something real, impacting, non-symbolic, and relevant, but by no means routine, they give George W. Bush the kind of victory he hoped for. The NSA wiretapping program — revealed in 2005 by The New York Times — has been ruled illegal again and again. It sidesteps an already troubling statute: the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA, whose secret judges grant secret warrants for secret searches or wiretaps, secretly. The Bush administration was forced to but the NSA program under the domain of FISA in January, resulting in a still-secret ruling that the program was illegal and placed restrictions, or something of the sort.

But the word 'illegal' is not in Bush's dictionary...
This bill, signed into law by Bush this weekend, validates the illegal wiretapping program that he has even admitted exists (in his own special way, plus it gave him a chance to attack the so-called liberal news media). It has a decent reach too. One of the administration's excuses for its until-recently-illegal eavesdropping program was that the current FISA court only deals with old means of communication, not modern ones like email and calls over fiber optic cable. Naturally, instead of requesting the then Republican-controlled Congress update the legislation (especially for the post-9/11 world, for which which the administration claims the illegal secret programs are essential), the White House decided to launch its own secret programs — legal or otherwise.

Extension of power
So what's wrong with this law just updating FISA to keep up with the times? Well, keeping up with technology is not the only changes this law puts into place...

Just as before, the FISA court only issues the search warrant after the search/wiretap is carried out — troubling, I know. But this legislation goes a bit further by removing more power from the courts, albeit secret ones that almost never take issue with clandestine spying on a domestic level. Now the searches can be carried out at the discretion of the attorney general or intelligence director.

That is all the more troubling considering the political yes-men Bush keeps in his cabinet and staff, and the fact that Alberto Gonzales is known for politically-motivated (in)justice. The horror! And as if the fact that Gonzales can now order secret searches, legally this time, isn't enough to make you a bit queasy for the disregard of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, keep in mind that under this new law the AG and head of intelligence have plenty of discretionary leeway when it comes to ordering secret surveillance. Plus, it's all secret; I'd expect nothing less transparent from this administration.

The sorta good news
A positive is that the AG will indeed have his power checked to a certain extent by internal audits, which have proved their worth in the past. That aspect of oversight is one the White House doesn't like.

One sliver of good news is that because of lawsuit threats that only increase under this legislation, telecommunications companies and ISPs are less likely to be bullied into invading their customers' privacy under pressure by the Bush administration. In fact, as I understand it this law removes the shield the White House has desperately tried to use to protect the telcos, which is bad news for the industry. Still, Gonzales has less leeway to invade our phone and internet records, though more to wiretap if the conversation might (emphasis on might) be with someone outside of the United States. Nonetheless, the telcos are as scared as ever of being sued for disclosing private details of their customers, as the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, as did the NYT (linked above):

The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.
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In fact, pressure from the telecommunications companies on the Bush administration has apparently played a major hidden role in the political battle over the surveillance issue over the past few months.

Worse than FISA
FISA was scary enough — but maybe understandable and, to an extent, justifiable — but putting the secret search rights into Bush's political cronies (yes, that's what Gonzales, among others, is) is going more than a tad overboard. Justifying it with national security is puzzling. The least Congress could do is get rid of Alberto Gonzales, which would take a bipartisan effort; many, many Republicans are on board with the idea and the Democrats have been jabbing at it for months. This new law will last six months or so, ending in early February 2008.

Just to make this more confusing, this all ties back to the legality of the 'war on terror':

With minor exceptions, FISA authorizes electronic surveillance only upon certain specified showings, and only if approved by a court. The statute specifically allows for warrantless wartime domestic electronic surveillance—but only for the first fifteen days of a war. 50 U.S.C. § 1811. It makes criminal any electronic surveillance not authorized by statute, id. § 1809; and it expressly establishes FISA and specified provisions of the federal criminal code (which govern wiretaps for criminal investigation) as the "exclusive means by which electronic surveillance...may be conducted," 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(f) (emphasis added).[2]

The Department of Justice concedes that the NSA program was not authorized by any of the above provisions. It maintains, however, that the program did not violate existing law because Congress implicitly authorized the NSA program when it enacted the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against al-Qaeda, Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001). But the AUMF cannot reasonably be construed to implicitly authorize warrantless electronic surveillance in the United States during wartime, where Congress has expressly and specifically addressed that precise question in FISA and limited any such warrantless surveillance to the first fifteen days of war.

So even under FISA the NSA program is questionable. No wait, the White House says it doesn't follow FISA rules because of the 'war on terror' powers given to the president by Congress. No worries: this new law legalizes all that existing wiretapping junk and then some.


There's balance, it's just all tilted towards the White House, (and the only checks are top secret)
In the war against terrorism there's no need to bother with those pesky courts of Constitutional practice anymore, says the White House. Congress seems to have fallen in line with that logic. And this isn't the first time. Remember the horrendous Military Commissions Act of 2006?

Isn't Congress supposed to oversee the operations of the executive? Has everyone forgotten the fundamental idea of checks and balances? With this law Congress has only given more power to the bloated, unpopular, unitary executive Bush administration that a majority of it claims to hate. It also cuts away further at the notion that Americans have rights guaranteed to them by their constitutional, and that civil liberties come with those rights. Freedom trumps security — or at least it should. But in a police state as well as in a certain way modern America (though nothing near a police state), fear rules all.

Soft on civil liberties
If the Democrats are so afraid of being painted as weak on national security, than actually being weak on civil liberties is not a very good fix. Are they more worried of what their opponents think of them and will paint them as than what they are actually doing? That's just sad.

When it comes to the reaction to national security — GWOT and its consequences — the Democrats have been disappointing. Does what your opponents think of you matter more than doing the right thing? Enjoy your recess, Congress. Hopefully you'll come back to Capitol Hill with more brains and balls.

Balkinization offers brilliant legal analysis and opinion on the 'proposed FISA "fix"', as they call it.

This post is over 1,500 words. Eventually I will probably cut it into shorter, more specific posts then expanding them. So don't be alarmed if you see a post with parts of this essay in the future.

Drunk flying

Wow, this cannot be good for a national space organization already tarnished by scandals, lack of public interest, decrease in funding, increase in political rhetoric, and who knows what else...

BBC News:

US astronauts were allowed to fly while drunk at least twice, a review panel set up by space agency Nasa has found.

Any good news for America's space agency? Nope.

Earlier, Nasa confirmed that a contractor had sabotaged a computer in an unrelated incident.

What ever happened to Bush's far-fetched attempt to court at least some of the scientific community by proposing a mission to Mars? Between the administration's contempt of biological research like stem cell technology (the stem cell vetoes speak for themselves) and its opposition to taking action or truly acknowledging climate change, and its embrace of creationism, not to mention funding cuts and a belief that religion trumps science, the scientist demographic is not one the White House scores well with. Realizing that, the president probably decided to drop his Mars fantasy for the most part.

Bullying the press

It's no secret: the Bush administration puts an unbelievable amount of spin on press releases, as to limit governmental transparency as much as possible. (Politicians always do that — they just take it to the next level.) But now it has sunk to a new low. On Wednesday the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, singled out a reporter and told him to 'correct' his article, which, in Snow's humble opinion, 'twisted [Snow's rhetoric] out of context'. The reporter's name was Les Kinsolving, a fairly liberal reporter and talk radio host...

The Raw Story (note: has a strong anti-Bush bent, for those of you not familiar with it; I usually don't cite it) reported that

Kinsolving asked Snow whether the President thinks it would be a good idea for all Americans to prepare an emergency survival kit for a possible terrorist attack or natural disaster.

Snow quickly said he couldn't comment, and then proceeded to take time out to lecture Kinsolving on his job, "Let me just point out," Snow said, "that you need to ask questions that bear on the President's responsibilities."

Snow continued to press Kinsolving, "I saw the piece you wrote the other day, that has been thoroughly twisting[sic] out of context." At this point Kinsolving tried to get a word in, but Snow was having none of it, "You know what I don't care, because the fact is, if someone is going to take questions about things that don't fall under the president's purview, and I answer that question, and it gets twisted, it is a disservice to this White House and the craft of journalism."

It was never clear exactly what piece Snow was objecting to, but he was annoyed enough to suggest, "that if I were you, I would pick up the phone and tell them to start cleaning up or writing corrections."

You can see the whole thing on video too in the aforelinked article. When the government's 'requesting' the press act with less criticism, it is certainly not acting in the interest of democracy. We've seen that plenty with the Bush White House and the so-called liberal news media (or SCLNM, as it is also known as on Daily Kos). Kinsolving has apparently stepped down from his post as White House correspondent.

Mr. Snow: reporters are there to let the people — and remember the US government is (supposed to be) a government of the people, by the people, for the people — know what the heck their government is doing, or at least as much as they can get out of your narrow and opinionated announcements. The Bush administration has already done enough to the press, a pillar of democracy, especially when dealing with the topics of national security, war, and executive affairs. Secretism and spin are two of the strongest traits this White House has to offer. Too bad it doesn't have more positive and constructive strong points.

No matter who's asking the questions (at least in the White House Press Corps), they often warrant an answer more revealing than the ever ubiquitous "No comment" or the loyal "The President believes...". Democracy requires transparency; it requires the people to ask the government and the government to answer to the people. In this modern age, the fact that the 24-minute-long Daily Show with John Stewart reveals more than four hours of any national news network does is worrying.

Bush is bad at excuses...

Deja vu, anyone?

President Bush is still in denial about the reality, in scientific as well as political realms. In this case, the denial is of the validity of his decision to stay in Iraq, and the conditions there. Al Qaeda as always proves a perfect scapegoat for when things go wrong (although they are no doubt inflaming the insurgency, alarmism and exploitation of people's fears of terrorism is not the way to go to rebut anti-Iraq war critics).

President Bush sought Tuesday to rebut critics who argue against a link between al-Qaida in Iraq and the larger terror network led by Osama bin Laden, issuing fresh warnings of possible attacks at home.

By emphasizing al-Qaida's growing presence and influence in Iraq, Bush again tried to reframe the war in the public's mind as a matter of protecting the United States.

Essentially he's saying what he has been saying all along: 'If you don't follow me and stick by my administration, the boogyman will come and get you and your children. Who, why, and how this terrorist will do that is secret, so I cannot tell you the specifics. Trust me, even when all rational thought and evidence is piled up against me... or else you're helping the terrorists win.'

See this post for more on Bush's flawed excuse for occupying Iraq. In my mind the only valid excuse left is 'to repair the mess we've created by invading and instituting poor policies' — not 'to finish what we started and take out the terrorists who attacked on 9/11 by combating them'. Wrong country; wrong mentality. The terrorists are there because of the insurgency, the insurgency exists because of a mixture of the inevitability of occupation and bad policies, as well as good ol' sectarian tensions.

Another high-ranking United States government official, Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales, is in a different kind of denial. He denies that he pressured previous AG John Ashcroft, who was hospitalized at the time, to engage in illegal wiretapping of American civilians in 2004. Isn't it amazing how Gonzales is still in office, months after he was supposed to be gone?

The White House's 'state of denial' is alive and well — which is not a good thing.

Another cop-out condemnation of torture

President Bush has signed "an executive order banning cruel treatment of terrorism suspects during interrogation", says the BBC.

Considering torture is already against the law — several laws in fact — this new order does little if any for helping America's tarnished image caused by its "war on terror". The administration will likely continue to turn a blind eye against operations deemed questionable in the area of human rights and will use this latest order as something to fall back on: 'the president has said he does not condone torture, he even made an executive order against it, so this case of "torture" is surely the case of a few bad apples'. Is this executive order, or EO, in fact a sort of admission that the White House has allowed torture to go on unabated? Probably not. But it has been known to use techniques and talk about them openly that it does not consider torture, but everyone else does, like waterboarding.

The damage is already done, and this latest cop-out by the Bush administration (see below) won't really alter the fact that the United States not only looks bad to the world, but will continue to act poorly, even when supposedly championing human rights, in the name of fighting terrorism. Innocents and terrorists alike will continue to be taken, detained, and treated unacceptably. The executive order still gives much authority for discretion to the relevant authorities to define which interrogation tactics are deemed "safe".

Here's what Marty Lederman over at Balkinization had to say about Bush's executive order on CIA torture:

The President has finally signed the Executive Order purportedly construing Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, as required by the Military Commissions Act (MCA). It is, in a word, worthless. Last month I surmised that the E.O. would be "very cryptic and uninformative, and that the public will not learn of what techniques our government is using and deeming not to be 'cruel treatment and torture.'"
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Just as the details of the Army Field Manual are published and open to public debate, so, too, should be the legal limitations that our government has identified regarding the CIA's analogous activities. As it is, this hide-the-ball lawmaking is supremely cynical, and, after all these years of public debate, an insult to the public and to the Congress. It's not surprising, however.

Later in the post, he points out the flaws as well as the legal questions this order puts into play. If you want to learn more on the matter from someone who knows this topic well, see the above link.

Isn't it time for some public oversight of what is happening at Gitmo and elsewhere? Shouldn't the vagueness end and the 'government of the people' be honest with its people? Not all of that information is or should be 'top secret' and essential to be kept secret for national security purposes. Everyone can see through the hubris, and yet Congress limits itself to symbolic maneuvers when dealing with executive oversight.

By trivializing not only national security but human rights and civil liberties — like the right to privacy and a fair trial — and politicizing what's left, the Bush administration has made a mockery of American political values still weak from the dark ages of the Cold War and the liberty-restricting times preceding it. The Military Commissions Act was a terrible law. What's worse is that only its negative aspects have seen the light of day so far, and nothing seems to be stopping them.

Iraq recap

Recap: Surging Iraq debate and a rebellious US Congress
The past couple days, my creative — or, gasp, political — juices have not been flowing as strongly. But the debate over Iraq clamors on, from Baghdad to Washington. A number of stories have featured Iraq as their primary topic, including:

A New York Times article on Bush's restatement of the connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. A sad defense for keeping troops there, which is the biggest Iraq-related issue facing America.

In rebuffing calls to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush on Thursday employed a stark and ominous defense. “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq,” he said, “were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

It is an argument Mr. Bush has been making with frequency in the past few months, as the challenges to the continuation of the war have grown. On Thursday alone, he referred at least 30 times to Al Qaeda or its presence in Iraq.

But his references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership.

There is no question that the group is one of the most dangerous in Iraq. But Mr. Bush’s critics argue that he has overstated the Qaeda connection in an attempt to exploit the same kinds of post-Sept. 11 emotions that helped him win support for the invasion in the first place.

Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia did not exist before the Sept. 11 attacks. The Sunni group thrived as a magnet for recruiting and a force for violence largely because of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which brought an American occupying force of more than 100,000 troops to the heart of the Middle East, and led to a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

Alarmism is Bush's primary tool to use against a rebellious Congress. The current administration seems to see Congress as a mere, bendable, and nonexclusive constitutional technicality; a branch of government that shouldn't have the power to match the executive and one that surely should not have a say in the war — unless its in favor of Bush's policies, of course. (Maybe the 'unitary executive' people also view the Constitution itself as a technicality... "just a piece of paper")

The president acknowledged that public opinion might be against him — he said that “sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don’t enable you to be loved” — but suggested that Congress was overstepping its constitutional role by trying to force a change of policy on him.

“I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war,” Mr. Bush said. “I think they ought to be funding the troops.”

So essentially Bush thinks of Congress what old-fashioned, sexist husbands think of their supposed-to-be-submissive wives.

Are the 18 benchmarks set by the Bush administration to review the progress in Iraq also shambolic? Yes, says Fred Kaplan of Slate. The progress report has finally been released; but everyone is talking about September as the real deadline for progress, and to see whether President Bush's troop 'surge' plan has succeeded as he insists it will. See here for a full scorecard based on the interim report.

What do the experts think of the options the US has in Iraq? An expert at CFR explains in this interview the 'middle-ground' options, i.e. the ones besides pulling out immediately and continuing with the 'surge' status quo.

Stephen Biddle, CFR’s top military analyst on Iraq, says none of the various “middle-ground” proposals on Iraq are feasible. He says the only analytically sound alternatives are to either pull out now, or to stick with a revamped “surge.” The U.S. policy of seeking cease-fire deals in places like Anbar is working, Biddle says, but adds that it only has a “ten-to-one” chance of succeeding.

The New York Times issued a damning-as-usual editorial against Bush's latest Iraq decision.

Here's an article by the Washington Post's Peter Baker on the red-hot debate still heating up in Washington on Iraq. More of that infamous gridlock on the way?

Wil Robinson over at International Political Will points out the lack of humanitarianism resonating from the political Iraq debate... from both sides of the aisle.

On the topic of Bush, and still sticking to Iraq, The Economist published a leader on the president's partial pardon of Scooter Libby (see post), among his other presidential mistakes.

The past week has been a terrible one for America's embattled president. First, on June 28th, his own Republicans scuppered his cherished—and, in the view of this newspaper, enlightened and brave—plan to reform the country's broken immigration system, decisively blocking it in the Senate. Then a group of prominent Republican senators joined forces with the Democrats to speak out against his policy of reinforcing Iraq. And on July 2nd George Bush brought fresh waves of vitriol down onto his own head, by annulling the 30-month prison sentence given in June to a top White House aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for perjury and obstruction of justice.
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Mr Bush's action serves to remind people of three of his weaknesses. One of them is his tendency towards cronyism, which led him to appoint a wholly unqualified friend to run the government's disaster-relief agency. The consequences were disastrously manifest during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Other examples include his failed attempt to appoint his own lawyer, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court. A second flaw is the hold that Mr Cheney appears to have over the man who is nominally his boss. The past few days have seen a series of articles in the Washington Post detailing the extent to which Mr Cheney has talked Mr Bush into bypassing all normal channels of debate to take questionable decisions.

A third effect of the decision, and perhaps the most serious, is that it reinforces the perception that Mr Bush sees himself and his cronies as above the law. Sometimes he has made this explicit, attaching “signing statements” to hundreds of bills sent to him by Congress asserting his right to interpret those bills as he deems fit. Sometimes he has done so covertly, wire-tapping Americans with no authorisation or permitting the use of torture with consequences felt at Abu Ghraib and in secret CIA prisons in black holes like Uzbekistan.

Perhaps, in the end, Mr Bush's decision came down to a simple calculation that he has little left to lose. He is not seeking re-election, his approval ratings can barely go any lower, and any hopes for legacy-polishing bipartisan co-operation with Congress seem to have evaporated. So why should Mr Bush not please his few remaining friends and placate his vice-president by springing the loyal Mr Libby? It makes a kind of sense, but a deeply troubling one. What else, one wonders, might so isolated a president do before he goes?

And finally the major political story on Iraq — besides the White House's spin-job on time being needed for progress there. America's House of Representatives voted in favor of withdrawal from Iraq. The bill will likely either be defeated in the Senate — which has a slimmer Democratic majority but, unlike last time, has more anti-Iraq-war-leaning Republicans — or will face an impending presidential veto, like what happened in early May.

The United States House of Representatives has voted in favour of pulling most combat troops out of Iraq by April next year.

The new legislation calls for the Pentagon to begin withdrawing combat troops within four months.

The vote comes despite President George W Bush's threat to veto any timetable.

Both the House and the Senate must pass separate legislation and then reconcile their two versions for a measure to be passed to the president.

Correspondents say the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, is hoping to pressure the Senate to approve a similar timeline.

It is the third time this year the House has voted in favour of legislation to end US military involvement in Iraq.

One previous legislative push was vetoed by Mr Bush, while a second failed when the Senate voted twice against imposing a withdrawal timetable.