The Rag Blog

WASHINGTON — Massachusetts lawmakers are set to launch a blizzard of investigations in the new Congress, probing issues such as wartime contracting, post-Katrina housing assistance, and the Bush administration’s relationship with Cuba and other countries in Latin America.

In what could be closely watched proceedings, two members of the Massachusetts delegation — representatives William D. Delahunt of Quincy and Martin T. Meehan of Lowell — are planning joint committee hearings to examine the administration’s Iraq war policies, particularly the reasons for the military’s lagging efforts to train Iraqi troops. Delahunt is in line to become chairman of the House International Relations Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations, and Meehan will take over the same subcommittee on the House Armed Services Committee.

Armed with the power to force sworn testimony for the first time after 12 years in the minority in Congress, members of the state’s all-Democratic congressional delegation are positioned to play major roles in investigating policies and actions that cut across the federal government and the business community.

“We could be the Bush administration’s worst nightmare come to pass, in terms of the questions we’ll be able to ask from positions of power,” said Representative Edward J. Markey of Malden, the dean of the Massachusetts delegation. “There are a lot of secrets that have been hidden from the American people in terms of the way business has been done for the past six years.”

Democrats in general say that when they become the majority party in Congress, they intend to shine a spotlight on administration policies and management, where the Republican power structure has done little to check the authority of the president. With the GOP powerless to stop them, Democrats say, they hope their oversight will protect taxpayer dollars and shape the political agenda going into the 2008 presidential election.

Bears appear to have stopped hibernating in Spain’s northern mountains, according to Spanish scientists who blame climate change for the behavior.

Of the 130 Cantabrian brown bears living in that region, a few females with cubs have been found awake in a season when bears – all bears – typically slumber.

They are the first bears known not to hibernate in Europe, naturalists from La Fundación Oso Pardo (the Brown Bear Foundation ) said.

“Mild winters mean that it is energetically worthwhile for the females to stay awake and search for nuts and berries,” Guillermo Palomero, the foundation’s president and coordinator of a national plan for bear conservation, told the Spanish daily El Pais.

Palomero added that other signs of winter bear activity have been observed “with absolute certainty” in the past three years.

While it is impossible to prove definitively that these changes in ursine behavior are the result of global warming, “everything points in that direction,” according to climatologist Juan Carlos García Cordón, professor of geography at the University of Cantabria in Santander, Spain.

Normally bears begin hibernation between October and December, and remain dormant through most of the winter to bypass the scarcity of their food supply – mainly nuts and berries. They resume activity between March and May.

But according to Palomero, even for the Cantabrian male bears who do slumber throughout the winter, the hibernation period is getting shorter every year.

“We are seeing the most dramatic negative consequences of global warming in the most cold-adapted species,” University of Texas biologist Camille Parmesan told Discovery News.

Parmesan is the author of the most comprehensive synthesis of the impact of climate change on terrestrial, marine, and freshwater species.

Published in the December issue of the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, her review compiles 866 scientific studies on the ecological effects of human-induced climate change and shows that global warming has already caused extinctions in the most sensitive habitats.

BAGHDAD – For years Salah Hussein, 26, had dreamed of having a child, but he never imagined that his wish would be marred by the death of his wife in childbirth.

Hussein’s wife, Fadiya, died of complications during a delivery which, doctors said, were caused by malnutrition and the stress of living in a war-torn country.

“We are a poor family and I couldn’t afford to buy her good food. This was not my fault but the fault of this destroyed country in which the conditions of the health sector are worsening day by day,” said Hussein who works as a barber in the capital, Baghdad.

Dozens of pregnant women with life-threatening conditions are being admitted to Iraq’s hospitals every month.

Dr. Mayada Youssif, a gynaecologist at Baghdad’s Kadhimiyah hospital, believes that pregnant women are falling ill due to the insecurity and poverty that Iraqis have to live with as a result of the conflict.

Many women give birth in environments where no-one is equipped to recognise an impending emergency. In some cases travelling to hospitals is the last resort because of insecurity, curfews, road blockages and fear of acts of violence.

“Insecurity has forced women to stay at home during their whole period of pregnancy, and they look for a doctor only when they are feeling really ill or feel, near to delivery time, that conditions have become too dangerous,” Youssif said.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF has said that Iraq’s maternal mortality rates have increased dramatically over the last 15 years. In 1989, 117 Iraqi mothers out of 100,000 died during pregnancy or childbirth. That ratio has now increased by 65 per cent.

‘In recent days, as you know, there has been a great deal of publicity on the Baker-Hamilton plan for dealing with the problems the United States faces in Iraq and for restarting the peace process on the Palestine problem. I have found, however, very little analysis of the plan in the press. Clearly, it focuses on issues so important , one is tempted to use that often misused term “vital,” not only for Americans but for the whole world that it deserves the closest possible scrutiny. As you will see in the following comment, I find serious weaknesses in it. The most serious is that it sets out objectives or desires without identifying feasible means to achieve them.

In the last few days, various moves have been made by the Bush administration that call into question its serious evaluation of Baker-Hamilton. One that received a great deal of attention is the announcement of its intent to add another 20,000 troops to the American contingent in Iraq. Those of us who remember Vietnam will hear echoes. There we were told time after time that just a few more thousand troops and a few more months would lead us to “victory. One difference from Vietnam is of critical importance. It is that there we were not seriously considering, as apparently we are, further action in another country. Today, there are signs that we have hovered on the brink of war with Iran for at least the last six months. As you may know, I have written on this danger on my website (www.williampolk .com). I think we are edging closer. Among the signs – and there are many — that point in this direction is one that I do not find reported in the American press: the Selective Service System announced three days ago that it is preparing its first test since 1998 of the draft.

All the above considerations make a careful consideration of American options on the Middle East a prime civic duty for all Americans. These include the detailed plan which Senator George McGovern and I developed in Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now (New York: Simon and Schuster, October 2006) and the Baker-Hamilton study, The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward – A New Approach (New York: Vintage, December 2006). Mr. Hamilton graciously wrote to say that “The report has helped to spark a renewed debate about the direction of U.S. policy, and he appreciates the substantial contribution that you and Senator McGovern have made to that debate.” Our book speaks for itself; here I want to [analyze] the Baker-Hamilton Plan:

I don’t know where Amy J. St. Eve received her law degree. Maybe through a mail correspondence course run out of a mail drop in Bibo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. Surely, she didn’t attend one of the law colleges here in America. But then, the way things are going, maybe she did. Increasingly, in Bushzarro world, that it to say neocon world, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights do not say what they mean or mean what they say.

“In Chicago, a federal judge recently permitted two Israeli agents to testify anonymously against two men accused of aiding the Palestinian group Hamas, designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization since 1995. Judge Amy J. St. Eve said that the right to learn a witness’ identity was ‘not absolute’ and that the use of pseudonyms for the Israeli agents was justified because of their assignments,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

St. Eve, obviously, does not have even a rudimentary understanding of the Sixth Amendment. It declares “the accused shall … be confronted with the witnesses against him” and says nothing about protecting witnesses. Reading the amendment, one would deduce that if the accused, for whatever reason, is unable to face his accusers, the state does not have a case.

During my last trip to Venezuela, covering the December 3, 2006 presidential elections for Axis of Logic, I had the opportunity to closely observe the voting procedures in a number of election stations in Caracas. During that time, I submitted 4 reports about the elections and the people in my second Venezuelan series, Observing the Revolution – The December 3, 2006 Presidential Election. Since my return to Boston, I have described my observations of the electoral process in Venezuela to a number of people in private conversations. Their responses have been so strong that I decided to pass my observations on to our readers. My fifth and final installment in this series is a simple description of the voting procedures which I and others observed during this historic election.

On December 3rd, my good friend, Augusto Montiel, a Deputy (senator) in the National Assembly drove Andy Goodall, Coordinator of Venezuela Solidarity UK and me through two areas of Caracas. The first was Altamira, a wealthy section of Caracas. The second was largest Barrio in Latin America, Petare, in the sector José Félix Ribas. We observed the voting process in election stations in both of these Caracas neighborhoods. The procedures were identical.

In the days prior to the election, mock voting was broadcast on national television to explain the voting procedure to the people to prepare them for the big day.

At 6:00 AM on November 30 the presidential campaigns were ended as required, according to Venezuelan law. After this time, no campaigning is permitted to continue until the CNE (National Election Commission) reports the official count of the votes. Likewise, no news organization is allowed to support either candidate in any way or to report on exit polls or partial returns – or to suggest who may be the winner during this period.

The Iraqi government is considering a new oil law that could give private oil companies greater control over its vast reserves. In light of rampant violence and shaky democratic institutions, many fear the law is being pushed through hastily by special interests behind closed doors.

Oil. The world economy’s thick elixir yields politics as murky and combustible as the crude itself. And no wonder. It brings together some awkward bedfellows: It’s where multinationals meet villagers, where executives meet environmentalists, where vast wealth meets deep poverty, where East meets West.

Oil, of course, can be politically explosive at the best of times, let alone the worst. So, when the country with the third largest oil reserves in the world debates the future of its endowment during a time of civil war, people sit up and take notice.

The Iraqi government is working on a new hydrocarbons law that will set the course for the country’s oil sector and determine where its vast revenues will flow. The consequences for such a law in such a state are huge. Not only could it determine the future shape of the Iraqi federation — as regional governments battle with Baghdad’s central authority over rights to the riches — but it could put much of Iraqi oil into the hands of foreign oil companies.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq — The inmates began their strike with an angry call. “Allahu akbar!” they shouted, 120 voices joining in a cadence punctuated by whoops.

They thrust their arms between the metal bars and ripped away the curtains and plastic sheets covering the windows facing the prison courtyard. Their squinting faces were exposed to light.

Their Kurdish guards gathered, ready to control a prison break. There was no break. The inmates were able only to shove their bunks against the doors and barricade themselves in their cells. They settled into a day of issuing complaints.

They were not allowed the Koran, they said. Their rations were meager and often moldy. Sometimes the guards beat them, they said, and several inmates had disappeared. The entire inmate population had either been denied trials or had been held beyond the terms of their sentences, they said — lost in legal limbo in the Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq.

The prison strike here, on Dec. 4, ended when the local authorities agreed to transfer three unpopular guards and to allow copies of the Koran in the cells. But it exposed an intractable problem that has accompanied Kurdish cooperation with the United States in Iraq.

The Kurdish prison population has swelled to include at least several hundred suspected insurgents, and yet there is no legal system to sort out their fates. So the inmates wait, a population for which there is no plan.

The Kurdish government that holds the prisoners says they are dangerous, and points out that the population includes men who have attended terrorist or guerrilla training in Iraq or Afghanistan. But it also concedes to being stymied, with a small budget, limited prison space and little legal precedent to look back on.

‘Never said that … never did,’ defense secretary now asserts

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to rewrite history last week when he denied making prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Rumsfeld’s latest effort at backtracking on his prewar statements came Thursday at a contentious public forum in Atlanta when he faced a handful of hecklers and an anti-war questioner in the audience, who charged that he had lied about Saddam having weapons of mass destruction, which was President Bush’s chief rationale for invading the country and starting the war.

The Pentagon chief denied he had lied and said he had relied on official intelligence reports about Saddam’s weapons.

His questioner persisted: “You said you knew where they were.”

Rumsfeld: “I did not. I said I knew where ‘suspect’ sites were.”

The record shows that in the weeks preceding the war, Rumsfeld flatly claimed to know the whereabouts of Saddam’s WMD arsenal.

On March 30, 2003, 11 days into the war, Rumsfeld was asked in an ABC News interview if he was surprised that American forces had not yet found any weapons of mass destruction.

Two things to take from this post: 1) Bush, et al campaigned way too hard for this loser to lose, and 2) Oh no, you did-int say the voters can’t see how the votes are recorded!

I didn’t think I would still be this appalled, all these weeks later, about the race in which Republican multimillionaire car dealer Vern Buchanan stole the U.S. House Florida District 13 seat. But with the Jetsonesquely named iVotronics’ manufacturer claiming that we, the voting public, have no right to know how (or if) their machines work, I’m outraged all over again.

Of all the races where there could have been problems with electronic voting machines, isn’t it funny that the one where the Bush Administration lobbied most heavily is the one that looks the most tampered with?

By now, everyone knows the story: Buchanan, according to his own internal polling, was behind Democrat Christine Jennings by three to six points going into the election. Jennings voters, upon exiting the booths, immediately reported difficulties with the touch-screen interface in that one race.

Not in dispute is how many voters were affected — about 18,000. The reason why 18,000 voters drove all the way down to the polling place, signed up for a ballot, cast a vote in every other race on that ballot, and then just stopped, is less clear.

WASHINGTON — The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks — including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting more immigrants on a faster track to US citizenship if they volunteer — according to Pentagon officials.

Foreign citizens serving in the US military is a highly charged issue, which could expose the Pentagon to criticism that it is essentially using mercenaries to defend the country. Other analysts voice concern that a large contingent of noncitizens under arms could jeopardize national security or reflect badly on Americans’ willingness to serve in uniform.