Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (left) watches Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speak at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 9, 2006.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee to urge approval of the Bush administration's latest emergency funding request. The Bush administration has requested $91 billion, mainly to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (click on title and then choose the 'listen' link)
What is a Secretary of State making testimony for war? A Secretary of State is supposed to end and prevent war, not propagate it.
ANALYSIS-Lebanon splits resurface after Israel-Hizbollah war (click on)
BEIRUT, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Rifts between Hizbollah and its Lebanese opponents will ensure that Lebanon has no easy ride as it tries to rebuild the economy and state institutions after Israel's devastating war with the Shi'ite Muslim guerrillas.With the last Israeli troops expected to leave the south shortly, Hizbollah was staging a huge rally on Friday to celebrate its "divine victory" in the 34-day conflict.
Its Sunni Muslim, Druze and Christian critics applaud the exploits of the guerrillas against Israel's war machine.
But they question the reality of a victory that cost nearly 1,200 lives in Lebanon, as well as billions of dollars in destruction and economic losses inflicted in an onslaught launched after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers.
US to hold naval exercises in the Gulf (click on)
Washington: Facing nuclear disputes with Iran and North Korea, the United States, Bahrain and other states will hold their first naval exercise in the Gulf this month to practise interdicting ships carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles, US officials said on Wednesday.
The exercise is taking place as the United States and other major powers are considering sanctions including possible interdiction of ships on North Korea, following a reported nuclear test, and on Iran, which has defied a UN Security Council mandate to stop enriching uranium.
German foreign minister says no current prospect of successful talks with Iran (click on)
BERLIN - Germany’s foreign minister on Saturday said there is currently no prospect of successful nuclear talks with Iran but that pressure on the country would be applied gradually, leaving the door open to future negotiations.
Repeated attempts by the U.N. Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany to entice Iran into negotiations on its nuclear program foundered earlier this month over Tehran’s refusal to give up uranium enrichment.
The six powers have agreed to start working on U.N. sanctions against Iran next week, diplomats and officials have said, but still have to bridge differences on how harsh the penalties should be.
Clashes in eastern Afghanistan leave 3 police, 3 suspected Taliban dead (click on)
Clashes in eastern Afghanistan leave 3 police, 3 suspected Taliban dead
The Associated PressSUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2006
KABUL, Afghanistan At least three police officers and three suspected Taliban died in clashes between in eastern Afghanistan, officials said Sunday.
Police shot dead two suspected militants on a motorbike who attacked their patrol in the eastern Paktika province on Sunday, said Sayeed Jamal, the spokesman for the province's governor.
Separately, a three-hour clash with militants in neighboring Khost province late on Saturday left three police dead, one missing and two wounded, said Gen. Mohammed Ayub, Khost's police chief.
One Taliban was killed in the clash near the border with Pakistan, Ayub said.
Militants used rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns during the attack, Ayub said.
In the year 2006, North Korea has nuclear weapon capacity.
Seoul Hails North Korea Resolution (click on)
The government on Sunday welcomed the U.N. Security Council's resolution adopted unanimously to sanction North Korea for its nuclear test on Oct. 9.
But the governing Uri Party underlined the importance of inter-Korean economic projects.
The government reaction came hours after the 15-member Security Council approved the resolution that ruled out military measures, but decided to inspect cargo to and from North Korea to prevent trafficking in weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Citing the North's nuclear test as a ``clear threat to international peace and security,'' the Security Council passed the resolution under the U.N. Charter's Chapter 7 that authorizes all U.N. member states to implement sanctioning measures.
U.S. military deaths in Iraq hit 2,760 (click on)
(AP) — As of Saturday, Oct. 14, 2006, at least 2,760 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,198 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is eight more than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.
The British military has reported 119 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, six; El Salvador, four; Slovakia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Romania, one death each.
The Grand Ayatollah al Sistani was instrumental in the large vote turn out regarding any elections and the Iraq Consitution. Without him, Bush would never be able to say '...there is a new government in Iraq.' If the Grand Ayatollah had told every Shia to stay home and not to venture out into the violence and chaos to vote, Iraq would be in complete disarray without any sense of sovereignty.
Iraq’s clerics to issue call for peace from Mecca (click on)
Iraq’s Sunni and Shia religious leaders are set to meet in the holy city of Mecca next week to endorse a call for an end to all sectarian bloodshed.
The meeting starting October 19, organised by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and backed by Saudi Arabia, comes amid rising concern over a spill-over of Sunni-Shia violence into other parts of the Middle East.
Tensions between the two main branches of Islam have been fanned by the Iraq conflict – where sectarian killings leave an estimated 100 people dead every day – and by Sunni Arab regimes’ alarm at the growing political influence of Shia Iran.
Yet analysts say the engagement of clerics is unlikely to have an impact on the ground, unless the meeting becomes a regular forum for a peace process.
The influence of religious figures, particularly on the Sunni side, is limited. Among Iraq’s majority Shia, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the highest ranking religious figure, played an instrumental role in containing Shia frustrations with the US after the 2003 invasion. But he has become increasingly distant in recent months, as the sectarian violence has intensified.
Then there is Darfur.
Former Sudan rebels, militia clash in Darfur town (click on)
KHARTOUM, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Sudanese Arab militia fighters clashed with former Darfur rebels in the main town of el-Fasher in Sudan's war-ravaged west, a former rebel official said on Saturday.A witness reported hearing heavy gunfire from the market area of el-Fasher on Friday night. At least one person was shot dead and another injured, an official from the former rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) said.
"What happened is the Janjaweed militia in el-Fasher clashed with our forces there, and then went to loot the market and shot some people," said Mohamed Bashir, who runs SLM leader Minni Arcua Minnawi's office in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
The SLM signed a peace deal in May with the government. Other rebel factions have refused to sign the accord, which a top U.N. envoy has described as comatose.
A Sudanese resident of el-Fasher, who asked to remain unnamed, said: "Heavy shooting could be heard from the area of the market in el-Fasher town last night. Initial reports were that two people had been shot."
Why would a Secretary of State make testimony regarding military budgets ?
Halliburton Hearts Congress (click on)
Do partisanship and cronyism trump congressional oversight and corporate accountability?
Feces in the soldiers’ water. Blood on the mess hall floor. Expired and substandard food. $85,000 trucks with flat tires abandoned in the desert. Embroidered towels for twice the cost. More than $1 billion in “questionable charges.” ...
... With billions of dollars at stake and the war prospectively stretching into the next decade, why isn’t Congress banging the gavel on oversight and corporate accountability? And why have congressional Democrats been forced to resort to guerilla tactics to wring information from Halliburton and other companies?
Sen. Byron Dorgan, the North Dakota chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, is tirelessly pushing for a Truman-style commission on war profiteering, but his amendments have been repeatedly defeated in party line votes—mostly recently in June with a 52-44 vote. As Dorgan spokesman Barry Piatt explains, “There is one-party control. Republicans hold the White House and the House and Senate and they are not interested in embarrassing each other.” But, Piatt insists, “We aren’t either. We’re interested in getting the troops what they need, and in safeguarding the taxpayers’ money.”
The Truman Commission, created during World War II and credited with saving taxpayers $15 billion ($200 billion today), is a good model. Hoping to undercut the rank partisanship surrounding congressional investigation of war profiteering, Missouri Democratic Senator Harry Truman began his investigations while a Democrat—Franklin Delano Roosevelt—was President.
It's time to 'end it.' The USA is insolent in it's policies of diplomacy and incompetent in it's capacity of defense. The Republican Reign is about money and not at all about National Security, the Defense of our nation or the future of our children.
