Russia: Explosives Found in Jet Wreckage

MOSCOW — One of two Russian airliners that crashed nearly simultaneously was brought down by a terrorist act, officials said Friday, after finding traces of explosives in the plane's wreckage.

A Web site connected to Islamic militants claimed the action was connected to Russia's fight against Chechen separatists.

The planes, with 90 people aboard, went down within 20 minutes of each other Tuesday night.

"According to preliminary information, at least one of the air crashes ... has been the result of a terrorist act," a spokesman for the Federal Security Service (search), Sergei Ignatchenko, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

No results from the investigation of the other crash — a Tu-134 (search) with 44 aboard that went down about 120 miles south of Moscow — have been announced.

Another security service spokesman, Nikolai Zakharov, said the explosive found in the remains of a Tu-154 (search) that carried 46 people appeared to be hexogen (search) — an explosive officials said was used in the 1999 apartment bombings that killed some 300 people in Russia, an attack blamed on Chechen separatists.


posted by Frodgie at 10:47 AM

 

Bush, McCain to sue over attack ads

President Bush yesterday joined forces with Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, to mount legal and legislative challenges to third-party attack ads, including those that question Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam record.
The move came as new polls by Gallup, the Los Angeles Times and Rasmussen showed Mr. Bush edging ahead of the Massachusetts Democrat in advance of next week's Republican National Convention. The first two polls attributed the shift to a series of anti-Kerry ads by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
But the president wants to stop the ads, along with other spots by third-party groups, known as 527s because of their tax designation. Yesterday, he telephoned Mr. McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war, from Air Force One and enlisted him in a planned lawsuit to force the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to quash the ads.
"Since the FEC failed to act, we would now be asking the courts to force the FEC to act to shut down all this activity," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "There would be a lawsuit."
"The president said if the court action doesn't work, then he would be willing to pursue legislative action and work with Senator McCain on that," Mr. McClellan said.

posted by Frodgie at 10:45 AM

 

Kerry convention gains blunted

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The race for the White House between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry remains a statistical tie, with Kerry holding a single-point edge among registered voters, according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

The survey of 876 registered voters found Kerry leading Bush 48 percent to 47 percent. The margin of error in that poll, conducted August 23-25, was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Among the 709 people determined to be likely voters, Bush held a three-point lead over Kerry, 50 to 47 percent -- a figure unchanged since the last poll, three weeks ago. And this poll comes in the wake of a controversy over harsh ads questioning Kerry's decorated military service during the Vietnam War.

The margin of error among likely voters was 4 percentage points.

Asked what they thought of how Bush was handling his job as president, 49 percent of the total survey said they approved; 47 said they disapproved.

When independent Ralph Nader was added into the mix, Bush led Kerry by a 48-46 margin among likely voters, with 4 percent supporting Nader. The major-party candidates were tied at 46 percent among registered voters, with Nader drawing 4 percent again.


posted by Frodgie at 10:41 AM

 

Al-Sadr militiamen turn in weapons, leave shrine

NAJAF, Iraq (CNN) -- A peace deal brokered by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Shiite radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr brought peace and quiet Friday to Najaf, in ruins after three weeks of fighting between al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia and U.S. and Iraqi forces.

A senior al-Sadr representative said most Medhi Army members had turned in their weapons.

Residents who fled the fighting returned to their homes as crews started a huge cleanup operation at the Imam Ali Mosque, the holy Shiite site where hundreds of Mehdi militia members took refuge.

The mosque has been locked and the crowds of people who had gathered there have left the shrine compound. Iraqi police appear to be taking over positions previously held by U.S. forces in and around the city.

Ahead of a 10 a.m. (2 a.m. EDT) deadline for the Mehdi Army fighters to vacate the mosque, al-Sadr called on them to hand over their weapons before leaving.

"Do this so they won't condemn you and they won't condemn me," the speaker said, reading a letter from al-Sadr over the mosque's sound system.


posted by Frodgie at 10:39 AM

 

For the President, Special Setup Is Planned at Convention

Moving to bring a special intimacy to the carefully scripted atmosphere of a political convention, President Bush will give his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention next week from a small circular stage in a sea of thousands of delegates and other guests.

"We wanted the president to be closer to people and surrounded by people," Mark McKinnon, Mr. Bush's chief media adviser, said. "It sort of reflected his strength and character as the man in the arena."

While the text of Mr. Bush's speech has been carefully assembled, so has every element of the set like the vibrant red carpet that will blanket the floor of the convention hall, the theater in the round and the lectern, which a convention organizer said had "a sort of skyscraper design" in recognition of being in New York.

These elements are not just about theatrics, though that, too, is part of the motivation, to cultivate interest and increase television ratings for the convention, which starts Monday and ends Thursday, the day Mr. Bush speaks. Campaign aides said the party was trying to send a message about the president, trying subconsciously to build on and reinforce ideas and themes of his campaign, and especially to emphasize the theme of strength.

"He is not just trapped by a stage," Mr. McKinnon said. "He doesn't have the usual comforts of a stage behind him. To me that says strength, that he is willing to stand out there alone" among all the delegates.

Up to now, the set design, with its multimillion-dollar stage, has been a closely held secret. Only yesterday did campaign aides disclose their plans, which include a reconfiguration of the convention hall the night the president is in town.

"I think the people are used to seeing conventions a certain way, and it gets old and tired," Mr. McKinnon said. "So we want to do something new and refreshing so that people might look at it differently."


posted by Frodgie at 10:30 AM

 

Kerry Renews Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation

GREEN BAY, Wis. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry renewed his call on Wednesday for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation and said the official investigation into abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison demonstrated a failure of civilian leadership.

"It's about leadership and it's about accountability," Kerry told supporters packed into a Philadelphia steamfitters' union hall where he spoke before traveling to Wisconsin.

Americans "want the truth and they want accountability," he said.

The report issued on Tuesday by an independent four-member panel headed by former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger showed there was a "failure of the civilian chain of command," the Democratic presidential challenger said.

"It's not just the little person at the bottom who ought to pay the price ... the buck doesn't stop at the Pentagon," he said.

Kerry did not mention Bush by name, but he said the prison abuse scandal was part of a larger failure involving miscalculations about the troop strength needed in Iraq and the costs involved.

He renewed his call for Rumsfeld to resign "for failure to do what he should have done" and said Bush should conduct his own investigation into the decision making that led to the penal abuses. Kerry called in May for Rumsfeld's resignation over the abuse scandal and said at the time he had urged Rumsfeld to quit months earlier due to miscalculations on Iraq.


posted by Frodgie at 6:58 AM

 

Terrorism not ruled out in Russian plane crashes

BUCHALKI, Russia — Russian emergency workers searched heaps of twisted metal and tall grass yesterday for clues about what caused two airliners to plunge to earth within minutes of each other, killing all 89 persons aboard. Officials said one jet sent a hijack distress signal, raising fears that terrorists had struck.
Flight recorders from both planes were found and taken to Moscow for investigation, ITAR-Tass reported, indicating the question of what caused the twin disasters soon could be answered.
Russian security authorities said that explosives specialists were still working at the scenes of the crashes. They reported that terrorism remained a possible cause, although there was no evidence so far that terrorists were behind the tragedies.
Federal Security Service spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said investigators still were questioning airport officials and airline and security employees at Domodedovo Airport, from which both flights departed 45 minutes apart.
A former National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman said coincidence was always possible, but seemed highly unlikely.

posted by Frodgie at 6:55 AM

 

Ayatollah appeals for peace in Najaf

NAJAF, Iraq — Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric returned home from Britain yesterday armed with a new peace initiative to end weeks of fighting in Najaf and a call for Iraqis across the country to march on the holy city.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who wields enormous influence among Shi'ite Iraqis, previously had declined to get involved in resolving the conflicts roiling the nation, and it was not clear why he suddenly changed his mind. But his dramatic return from a nearly three-week trip to London, where he had gone for medical treatment, spread optimism that the crisis could be resolved peacefully.
Despite Ayatollah al-Sistani's call for peace, heavy fighting persisted in Najaf's Old City, the center of many of the clashes between militants loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and an Iraqi-U.S. force. Late yesterday, U.S. warplanes bombed the area for the fourth night in a row. Skirmishes broke out and huge blasts sporadically shook the city.
In nearby Kufa, unidentified men shooting from an Iraqi guard base killed two persons and wounded five taking part in what appeared to be a peaceful demonstration supporting Sheik al-Sadr.
Soon afterward, three mortar rounds, apparently targeting a police checkpoint, hit a civilian area in Kufa, killing two, including an 8-year-old boy, and wounding four, witnesses and hospital officials said.

posted by Frodgie at 6:47 AM

 

At least 25 dead as mortars hit Kufa mosque

KUFA, Iraq (CNN) -- An attack on the Kufa mosque Thursday morning killed at least 25 people and wounded about 60 others as they gathered around the holy site for peaceful protests to end the violence in neighboring Najaf.

After the attack, the demonstrators continued their rally and began marching toward Najaf. They came under sniper fire, the source of which could not be determined.

The mosque took two direct hits and another mortar or rocket landed just outside the mosque, witnesses said.

Kufa is a suburb of Najaf, the scene of a nearly three-week battle pitting U.S. and Iraqi troops against fighters loyal to renegade Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The demonstrators said they had gathered around the Kufa mosque in response to Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's call for peaceful protests in Najaf as the Shia leader heads to the Shia holy city. The demonstrators said they expect al-Sistani to come through Kufa on his way to Najaf.


posted by Frodgie at 6:33 AM

 

Lawyer Advising Vets Quits Bush Campaign

WASHINGTON (AP) - One of President Bush's top lawyers resigned from his campaign Wednesday, a day after disclosing that he had given legal advice to a veterans group airing TV ads challenging Democrat John Kerry's Vietnam War service. The guidance included checking ad scripts, the group said.

Benjamin Ginsberg, who also represented Bush in the 2000 Florida recount that made the Republican president, told Bush in a letter that he felt his legal work for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had become a distraction for the re-election campaign.

"I have decided to resign as national counsel to your campaign to ensure that the giving of legal advice to decorated military veterans, which was entirely within the boundaries of the law, doesn't distract from the real issues upon which you and the country should be focusing," Ginsberg wrote.

The Kerry campaign portrayed Ginsberg's departure as another sign of ties between the Bush campaign and the veterans group, which has been airing ads accusing Kerry of exaggerating his Vietnam record.

posted by Frodgie at 6:28 AM

 

Diary refutes Kerry claim

John Kerry's own wartime journal is raising questions about whether he deserved the first of three Purple Hearts, which permitted him to go home after 4½ months of combat.
The re-examination of Mr. Kerry's military record, prompted by commercials paid for by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the book "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry" by two of the group's members, continued even as Mr. Kerry stated that voters should judge his character based on his anti-war activities upon returning from Vietnam.
A primary claim against Mr. Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans is that Mr. Kerry's first Purple Heart — awarded for action on Dec. 2, 1968 — did not involve the enemy and that Mr. Kerry's wounds that day were unintentionally self-inflicted.
They charge that in the confusion involving unarmed, fleeing Viet Cong, Mr. Kerry fired a grenade, which detonated nearby and splattered his arm with hot metal.
Mr. Kerry has claimed that he faced his "first intense combat" that day, returned fire, and received his "first combat related injury."

posted by Frodgie at 6:29 AM

 

The sampan incident

Steve Gardner will not forget the night as long as he lives. It was mid-January 1969. He was manning the double .50-caliber machine-gun mount in Lt. John Kerry's swiftboat. "The PCF 44 boat, engines shut off, lay in ambush near the western mouth of the Cua Lon River," writes John O'Neill in his best-seller "Unfit for Command."

Kerry was in the pilothouse monitoring the radar. But, Gardner claims, Kerry had given his crew no heads-up when, suddenly, a sampan appeared right in front of them. The swiftboat lights were thrown onto the sampan. Kerry, however, still had said nothing and was nowhere in sight. Gardner yelled to the sampan to stop. No reaction.

Then, as Gardner and crew thought they saw a man on the sampan holding or reaching for a weapon, they cut loose with the machine guns.

But when the crew boarded the sampan, they found no man on the boat, just a woman clutching a child no more than 2 years old and the shattered body of a boy. The man who had been piloting the sampan was believed to have been blasted into the water.

Here was a tragedy of war. But it is the contention of O'Neill and Gardner that Kerry bears responsibility for the boy's death. Had he been on the radar, he could have seen the sampan at a distance and ordered the crew to fire a warning shot. A slow-moving sampan was no threat to a swiftboat that could shoot it to pieces from half a mile away. Nor could a sampan run away from a swiftboat.

posted by Frodgie at 6:24 AM

 

Thatcher Son Accused in Coup Plot

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South African police arrested Mark Thatcher (search), the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (search), early Wednesday on allegations he was involved in a plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea (search), police said.

Police spokesman Sipho Ngwema said Thatcher was arrested at Cape Town home and is expected to be charged with violation of the Foreign Military Assistance Act.

"We have evidence, credible evidence, and information that he was involved in the attempted coup," said Ngwema. "We refuse that South Africa be a springboard for coups in Africa and elsewhere."

Police raided Thatcher's home in the upscale suburb of Constantia shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday armed with search warrants. Investigators searched his records and computers for evidence.

Investigators believe Thatcher helped finance a plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.

"We believe Mr. Thatcher assisted in finance and logistics," said Ngwema, who declined to elaborate.


posted by Frodgie at 6:22 AM

 

Cheney describes same-sex marriage as state issue

DAVENPORT, Iowa (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday he believes the question of same-sex marriage is best handled by the states -- a position that puts him at odds with President Bush who proposed amending the Constitution to ban such unions.

"At this point, my own preference is as I've stated," Cheney said. "But the president makes basic policy for this administration, and he's made it clear that he does in fact support a constitutional amendment on this issue."

Cheney, the father of two adult daughters -- one of whom is a lesbian -- was asked for his views on "homosexual marriage" during a campaign rally here.

"Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue that our family is very familiar with," Cheney said as he began to explain his view.

"With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is that freedom means freedom for everybody," said Cheney, who took the same stand during the 2000 presidential race.

"People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to."

Cheney then spoke specifically about marriage.


posted by Frodgie at 6:19 AM

 

Investigators probe Russia crashes

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- Russian search and rescue officials have found the crash sites of two Russian jetliners that went down in mysterious circumstances after leaving Moscow, Russia's Emergency Ministry says.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Federal Security Service to investigate the near-simultaneous incidents, Russian authorities said.

As many as 94 passengers and crew were reported aboard the two aircraft. There was no report of survivors from either plane Wednesday, authorities said.

About 2,000 people are combing the crash sites, the Emergency Ministry said. A number of bodies have been recovered at each location.

The first plane, a Volga-Avia Express Tupolev 134, was en route to Volgograd, in southern Russia, from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport -- the city's main airport for domestic flights -- with 34 passengers and a crew of eight.

It disappeared from radar at 10:56 p.m. (2:56 p.m. ET) Tuesday, and its wreckage was found about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Moscow near Tula, according to the Emergency Ministry.

"First I heard a roaring noise as if a plane was driving by my house," a witness said.


posted by Frodgie at 6:17 AM

 

With an eye on U.S. vote, North Korea rails at Bush

SEOUL North Korea called President George W. Bush an imbecile and a tyrant who puts Hitler in the shade, unleashing a stream of insults Monday that seemed to rule out any serious progress on nuclear disarmament talks before the American elections in November.

"The meeting of the working group for the six-party talks cannot be opened because the U.S. has become more undisguised in pursuing its hostile policy toward North Korea," a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry told the country's state-controlled news agency.

A new round of talks was to be held in Beijing in September or October, as North Korea's neighbors and the United States seek to persuade North Korea to stop manufacturing nuclear weapons.

The tirade Monday was apparently in response to a campaign remark last week by Bush, who referred to Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, as a "tyrant."

Some South Korean analysts, often optimists on Pyongyang's behavior, said North Korea was following a standard negotiating tactic of ratcheting up the rhetoric before settling down for real talks.

"North Korea has made an ultrastrong statement right before a very important set of negotiations. It is their typical tactic," said Yun Duk Min, a professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul.

But other analysts of North Korea have said in recent days that Pyongyang was waiting to see who it would have to deal with in January: Bush or the Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry.

"The negotiating process is stalled. It is clear they have just refused to participate in talks before the American presidential election," said Alexander Losyukov, who was Russia's negotiator at the talks until this past spring and is now Russia's ambassador to Japan. He added in an interview last week: "There are expectations in Pyongyang of a change in American policy. Probably they are wrong." Kerry has indicated that if elected president, he would pursue direct bilateral talks with North Korea within the existing six-country framework of the United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. However, he has sharply criticized Bush for promising to pull out one-third of the 36,000 American troops in South Korea without winning any reciprocal military concession from Pyongyang.

"The North Koreans made it very clear, politely, that they want Mr. Kerry to win the election," said Kenneth Quinones, a former U.S. diplomat who was in Pyongyang this month for a Korean studies conference.

"North Koreans are going to play wait-and-see," Quinones added in an interview in Tokyo. The six-party talks have stabilized the situation, said Quinones, who worked on talks in 1994 that led to the first nuclear-control accord with North Korea. "But the process will require the U.S. to sit down with the North Koreans in a smoke-filled room for three months and bring out an agreement," he said. In Pyongyang, official irritation with the United States has increased with the passage last month by the House of Representatives of the North Korean Human Rights Act, a bill that seeks to support North Korean refugees in China.

posted by Frodgie at 7:10 AM

 

Kerry bid to make Bush 'goat' for 9/11 seen risky

Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign is belittling President Bush for his immediate reaction to the September 11 terrorist attacks, stepping up its response to recent criticism of Mr. Kerry's conduct during the Vietnam War.
"John Kerry is not the type of leader who will sit and read 'My Pet Goat' to a group of second-graders while America is under attack," said Kerry campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter, a reference to the book Mr. Bush continued reading with children for several minutes after his chief of staff informed him of the second World Trade Center plane attack.
In a short, prepared statement on Friday, responding to the furor about ads by Vietnam veterans that the Kerry team blames on Mr. Bush, Miss Cutter also ripped into White House spokesman Scott McClellan as out of touch and said he and the president were complicit in lying.
"John Kerry is a fighter, and he doesn't tolerate lies from others," she said. "Some day, Mr. McClellan and George Bush will have to face the truth about health care and economic issues facing this country. This election is about this country and its future. When Mr. McClellan realizes that, it will be too late."
The line of attack about the children's book could prove risky for the Kerry campaign, because it was started by polarizing liberal filmmaker Michael Moore, from whom the Kerry campaign and other Democrats in close races have tried to keep at least some distance.
The strategy could be particularly risky because, although Mr. Kerry was not reading a children's book when the attacks occurred, he has admitted that he sat stunned and unable to think for more than 30 minutes in the Capitol until he and other senators were whisked out of the building to safety.

posted by Frodgie at 7:06 AM

 

Kerry, Bush in Political Firefight

WASHINGTON — President Bush (search) said Monday that a veterans' group should stop airing television ads criticizing John Kerry's (search) war record.

Bush said ads from Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (search), a 527 group named after its status in the tax code, should be pulled. The call from Bush could open him up to charges that the Bush-Cheney campaign is coordinating with an unregulated political organization.

"That means that ad and every other ad. I don't believe we ought to have 527s. I think they're bad for the system," Bush said on Monday in Crawford, Texas. "I frankly thought we'd gotten rid of it when I signed McCain-Feingold" campaign finance reform.

Bush said that he thought Kerry "served admirably and he ought to be proud of his record," but it remains undecided whether that will extinguish the political firefight that has built over Kerry's service in Vietnam.


posted by Frodgie at 7:04 AM

 

Blasts Kill at Least Five in Iraq

NAJAF, Iraq — U.S. and Iraqi forces battled militants in Najaf (search) on Tuesday and Iraqi National Guardsmen surrounded the holy city's Imam Ali Shrine, where insurgents loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have been holed up for weeks.

However, a raid into the shrine was not imminent, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan (search) told Al-Arabiya television.

Witnesses in Najaf said the Iraqi forces accompanied U.S. troops into the Old City for the first time in recent days on Tuesday and were stationed about 200 yards from the shrine. Clashes between militants and the combined U.S. and Iraqi forces rang out and plumes of black smoke rose above the city.


posted by Frodgie at 7:01 AM

 

Pope condemns unethical science, cloning

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (AP) -- Pope John Paul II warned in a statement released Sunday that humanity's speedy progress in science and technology risks overlooking moral values, citing with particular concern experiments in human cloning.

The pontiff -- in a message written August 6 but released Sunday for the start of a Church-organized meeting on the theme of progress -- insisted that advanced research must not become an end in itself.

"The results achieved in various fields of science and technology are considered and defended by many as a priori acceptable," he said. "In this way, one ends up expecting that what is technically possible is in itself also ethically good."

The pontiff continued: "There is no one who does not see the dramatic and distressing consequences of such pragmatism, which perceives truth and justice as something modeled around the work of man himself. It is sufficient, as one example among others, to consider man's attempt to appropriate the sources of life through experiments in human cloning."

John Paul cited this as an example of "the violence with which man tries to appropriate the truth and the just, reducing them to values that he can dispose of freely, that is, without recognizing limits of any kind if not those fixed and continually overcome by technological possibility."


posted by Frodgie at 6:58 AM

 

Pope Condemns Human Cloning and Arrogance of Man

CASTELGANDOLFO, Italy (Reuters) - Pope John Paul on Sunday condemned human cloning as an arrogant attempt to improve on God's creation.
"The sense of power that every technical progress inspires in man is well known," the pope said in a message sent from his summer residence in Castelgandolfo to a meeting of prominent Catholic cultural, political and business leaders in the Italian city of Rimini.

"The attempt by man to appropriate the source of life by experimenting with human cloning is example enough," he said in a message sent at the start of the week-long event.

The comments come less than two weeks after British scientists were given permission to clone human embryos for medical research -- believed to be the first such license granted in Europe.

The pope said medical research should not try to "manipulate" human beings "according to a project considered with arrogance better than that of the Creator himself."

"The way taught by Christ is another: it is that of respect for human beings," he said, urging ethically responsible science.


posted by Frodgie at 6:48 AM

 

An angry dispute over a rescue in the river

A number of the combat commanders, fellow officers and other men who served with Sen. John Kerry in Vietnam challenge his accounts of combat heroism in a new book, "Unfit for Command" (Regnery Publishing), by John E. O'Neill, who took over command of Swift Boat PCF 94 from Lt. Kerry, and Jerome R. Corsi, who has written extensively about the Vietnam War protest movement. This is the last of three excerpts that include comparisons of Mr. Kerry's earlier published accounts to recollections of others who served with him.

Last of three excerpts
John Kerry was involved in his final "combat" in Vietnam on March 13, 1969.
The public has seen it: The incident has been the subject of more than $50 million in paid political advertising.
The incident was featured before the Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa, where Kerry met in tearful reunion with Jim Rassmann, the Special Forces lieutenant who he "rescued from the water."
Here is Kerry's account of the final episode of his four-month Vietnam cameo, for which he received his third Purple Heart and a Bronze Star:
A mine went off alongside Kerry's Swift Boat, PCF 94. Rassmann was blown into the water. Kerry was terribly wounded from the underwater mine.
Kerry, 25, turned his boat back into the fire zone and, bleeding heavily from his arm and side, reached into the water and pulled Rassmann to safety with enemy fire all around. Kerry then towed a sinking boat out of the action.
There is only one problem with this scenario involving five Swift Boats on the Bay Hap River, described in Douglas Brinkley's biography "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War" (William Morrow, 2004) and elsewhere: It is another gross exaggeration of what actually happened and, in several ways, a fraud perpetrated upon the Navy and the nation.
Kerry's conduct on March 13, 1969, was more worthy of disciplinary action than any sort of medal. The action certainly does not establish his credentials for becoming the president of the United States.
Kerry's report
According to the records, Kerry claimed in the casualty report that he prepared March 13, 1969, that he was wounded as a result of a mine explosion.
Within a short period, he presented his request to go home on the basis of his three Purple Hearts. By March 17, 1969, his short combat career in Vietnam was over.

posted by Frodgie at 6:44 AM

 

U.S. forces tighten grip around Najaf

NAJAF, Iraq — Explosions and gunfire shook Najaf's Old City yesterday in a fierce battle between U.S. forces and Shi'ite militants, as negotiations dragged on over the turnover of the shrine that the fighters have used as their stronghold.
U.S. warplanes and helicopters attacked positions in the Old City for the second consecutive night with bombs and gunfire, witnesses said. Militant leaders said the Imam Ali shrine compound's outer walls were damaged in the attacks. The U.S. military had no comment, although it has been careful to avoid damaging the compound.
Also, five U.S. troops were reported dead in separate incidents, and an American journalist held hostage for more than a week was released by his captors.
Yesterday's clashes in Najaf appeared to be more intense than in recent days as U.S. forces sealed off the Old City. But Iraqi government officials counseled patience, saying they intended to resolve the crisis without raiding the shrine, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest sites.
"The government will leave no stone unturned to reach a peaceful settlement," National Security Adviser Mouaffaq al-Rubaie said. "It has no intention or interest in killing more people or having even the most trivial damage to the shrine. We have a vested interest in a peaceful settlement."

posted by Frodgie at 6:43 AM

 

Senate GOPers Call for Disbanding CIA

WASHINGTON — Senate Intelligence Committee Republicans proposed removing the nation's largest intelligence gathering operations from the CIA (search) and the Pentagon and putting them directly under a new national intelligence director (search).

Sen. Pat Roberts (search), R-Kan., the committee chairman, unveiled on Sunday the most sweeping intelligence reorganization proposal offered by anyone since the Sept. ll commission (search) called for major changes. In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," Roberts acknowledged that full details had yet to be shared with either the White House or with Senate Democrats.

"We didn't pay attention to turf or agencies or boxes" but rather to "what are the national security threats that face this country today," Roberts said of the proposals supported by eight GOP members of the intelligence committee. "I'm trying to build a consensus around something that's very different and very bold."

But he immediately ran into some resistance from a Democrat on his own committee. Sen. Carl Levin (search), D-Mich., said that before appearing with Roberts on the CBS show neither he nor the committee's ranking Democrat, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, had seen the full proposal.

"I think it would be better to start on a bipartisan basis," Levin said. "I think it's a mistake to begin with a partisan bill no matter what is in it."


posted by Frodgie at 6:38 AM

 

America's next war?

"The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." This is the heart of the Bush Doctrine from the president's "axis of evil" address to Congress. And the nations that constituted that axis were Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Under this doctrine, Iraq was invaded, Saddam overthrown and his army disbanded, though we have yet to find any of the "world's most destructive weapons."

With North Korea, the train has left the station. Pyongyang can now produce nuclear weapons and may possess half a dozen. For nations like North Korea and men like Kim Jong Il do not build costly and complex ballistic missiles simply to throw conventional explosives across an ocean.

Which leaves Iran. With Moscow's assistance, Tehran has been constructing a nuclear power plant at Bushehr. Once operational, Bushehr will, like Yongbyon in North Korea, yield plutonium as a byproduct.

Last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency also stumbled on a secret uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz. Its centrifuges were found to contain traces of weapons-grade uranium. Highly enriched uranium, U-235, is a component of atomic bombs. Little Boy, dropped on Hiroshima, had a uranium core. Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki, had a plutonium core.

Lately, an effort by Russia, France and Germany to have Iran open up its nuclear plants to inspection has been rebuffed by Tehran. Having seen how America dealt summarily with Iraq, but proceeds gingerly with North Korea, Tehran has likely concluded that when a superpower is threatening pre-emptive strikes and preventive war, only nuclear weapons can deter it.

posted by Frodgie at 6:37 AM

 

Bush campaign denies 'smear tactics'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush campaign rejected accusations Sunday from Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign that it was using "tired, old smear tactics" by letting backers attack Kerry's Vietnam War record through an independent group.

"The fact is this campaign is unprecedented in our praise of our opponent's service during Vietnam," Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The remark came two days after the Kerry campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission arguing that a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was illegally coordinating with President's Bush re-election campaign -- a charge the Bush campaign denies. (Full story)

The group, which has run ads attacking Kerry's war record and his comments upon his return from the war, was established with large donations from Republicans from Bush's home state of Texas.

Such so-called 527 groups are barred from coordinating efforts with an election campaign. The term refers to Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, which makes such organizations tax exempt and allows them to accept unlimited "soft money" donations.


posted by Frodgie at 6:35 AM

 

Bush adviser quits after appearing in swift boat ad

ROANOKE, Virginia (CNN) -- A volunteer adviser has quit President Bush's re-election campaign after appearing in a veterans group's television commercial blasting Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's involvement in the Vietnam-era antiwar movement.

A Bush campaign statement said it did not know that retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier had appeared in an ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The Kerry campaign has accused the group of illegally working with the Bush campaign.

As a so-called 527 group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is barred from coordinating efforts with an election campaign.

Kerry's camp calls it a front for the Bush campaign and has urged the Federal Election Commission to cite the group, the Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee for violating federal election laws.

The 527 groups are named for the federal provision that makes such organizations tax exempt and allows them to accept unlimited donations.

Before his departure, Cordier -- who spent six years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam -- was a member of the Bush-Cheney campaign's veterans' steering committee, campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said in a written statement issued Saturday night.

Cordier appeared in a commercial launched Friday by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has accused Kerry of lying about his Vietnam service. In it, he and other Vietnam veterans accuse Kerry, a decorated Navy officer, of selling out his old comrades by joining the antiwar movement upon his return home.

"He betrayed us in the past. How could we be loyal to him now?" Cordier asks in the ad.


posted by Frodgie at 8:11 AM

 

Bush Promises to Offer Detailed Plans at Convention

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 - President Bush will present what aides say will be a detailed second-term agenda when he is nominated in New York in 10 days, part of an ambitious convention program built on invocations of Sept. 11 and efforts to paint Senator John Kerry as untrustworthy and out of the mainstream.

Mr. Bush's advisers said they were girding for the most extensive street demonstrations at any political convention since the Democrats nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in Chicago in 1968. But in contrast to that convention, which was severely undermined by televised displays of street rioting, Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

And after months in which Mr. Bush stressed issues of concern to conservative supporters - from restrictions on stem cell research to a constitutional amendment to bar gay marriage - the convention will offer its national television audience a decidedly more moderate face for the president and his party. If "strength" was the leitmotif of the Democratic convention in Boston, "compassion" will be the theme in New York, marking the return of a mainstay of Mr. Bush's 2000 campaign, party leaders said.

Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia who has become increasingly estranged from his party, will lead a prime-time televised lineup of speakers as notable for who is not there (conservative Republican leaders) as for who is (Mr. Miller and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the moderate Republican governor of California). And Republicans are pressing for a quick and quiet adoption of a platform to minimize dissent over issues that have divided the party, in particular immigration restrictions and a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Most of all, Mr. Bush's aides said that after five months in which they have focused almost exclusively on attacking Mr. Kerry, the president will use his speech to offer what they asserted would be expansive plans for a second term, in an effort to underline what they argued was Mr. Kerry's failure to talk about the future at his own convention.

"This speech has to lay out a forward-looking, positive prospective agenda," said Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's senior political adviser. "It has to show - and to defend in a way the American people want to hear - his policies on the war on terror."

Mr. Bush's advisers offered no details on what he might propose, and even some Republicans said the White House might be constrained both by the deficit and resistance among Republicans on spending.


posted by Frodgie at 8:08 AM

 

American Says He Was on bin Laden's Trail

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - An American on trial for allegedly torturing Afghan terror suspects in a private jail claimed Saturday in his first interview from custody that he was hot on the heels of Osama bin Laden and other militant leaders when he was arrested on July 5.

Jonathan Idema told The Associated Press he had official sanction from Afghans and Americans to hunt down terrorists and said he has been prevented from showing the evidence in court. Prosecutors say Idema was waging a private war, and he faces up to 20 years in a crumbling Afghan prison if convicted.

"We would have had (renegade Afghan warlord Gulbuddin) Hekmatyar in 14 days or less. We would have had bin Laden in less than 30 days" had he and his team not been arrested, said Idema, a colorful former U.S. Army soldier who spent three years in jail in the 1980s for allegedly bilking 60 companies out of more than $200,000 in goods.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Idema came to Afghanistan and was featured in several books about the war and the search for bin Laden. He has also worked with several western TV networks. He said he came to Afghanistan again earlier this year because he felt U.S. anti-terror efforts were failing.


posted by Frodgie at 8:05 AM