Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Mess in MosulBy Eric UmanskyPosted Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004, at 12:39 AM PT
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post all lead with Mosul, which a few thousand U.S. troops entered to try to put down a rebellion. The Wall Street Journal tops its world-wide newsbox (at least online) with video showing the apparent execution of Margaret Hassan, the British-Iraqi aid official who was kidnapped last month. There had been widespread criticism among Iraqis of the kidnapping, including on militant Web sites. USA Today all-but-ignores the fighting and leads with key Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) telling the paper he's lukewarm on President Bush's hankering to radically change the tax code. "I'm not one to spend a lot of time tilting at windmills," said Grassley, whose support would be key since any tax bill would have to clear the Finance Committee, which he chairs.
Citing the military, the Post and NYT both say there doesn't appear to be much resistance in Mosul. The LAT is the only paper with a dateline from the city, and it has a different take. The paper describes a "series of bloody attacks and counterattacks" yesterday: Among them: A suicide car bomb killed "several" Iraqi troops and civilians, three police stations were mortared, and the Kurdish party HQ was repeatedly attacked. One U.S. commander told the Post that 80 percent of Mosul's police haven't shown up for work since the insurgent offensive began last week.
There was also fighting in Baji, Baqubah, Buhritz, Ramadi, and Balad. One GI was reported killed and a handful wounded. There was also another attack on an oil pipeline. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government said it had arrested the leader of one major insurgent group.
Continue Article
Marking his return, the Post's Iraq lead is written by Pulitzer-man Anthony Shadid. The story includes an interview with a top insurgent. "The Americans have opened the gates of hell," said Abdullah Janabi. The really interesting thing is the location of the interview: Fallujah. "I am here. You can see me," said Janabi, surrounded by bodyguards inside an undamaged house.
Most of the papers notice that Navy engineers came into the town yesterday, tried to do a quick reconstruction assessment, and then hustled out under sniper fire. "We'll never get them all," one officer told the LAT. "They're everywhere."
Everybody notes the military is investigating after a now-infamous video showed a Marine shooting a wounded and apparently unarmed insurgent. Only the LAT fronts it, and headlines the fallout: Arab stations played the video endlessly, unedited. The LAT also mentions that British TV seems to have captured a similar incident.
The papers mention in passing that GIs arrested a top Sunni politician; he's a member of the party that recently announced an elections boycott. The LAT says the move "startled" Iraqi officials. Nobody mentions the military's explanation or lack of thereof.
Everybody fronts President Bush's formal nomination of Condoleezza Rice as the next Secretary of State. As expected, Bush also named current Rice deputy Stephen Hadley to succeed her. No real news here, so the papers mostly repeat yesterday's refrain. As the WSJ puts it, the president is showing a "preference for close aides known above all for unstinting devotion to him." The Post adds: "Aides said Bush and Rice know each other so well they have conversations based on body language."
Most of the papers say next off the plank will be Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (though the NYT dissents and says he might stay into next year).
The Post fronts Republicans proposing to change House rules and allow indicted legislators to keep leadership roles. The proposal is a Thank You to Majority Leader Tom DeLay who may get the book thrown at him by a Texas grand jury investigating funding of one of his PACs.
A Page One NYT piece flags an email intel boss Porter Goss send around the Agency Monday: "NEW C.I.A. CHIEF TELLS WORKERS TO BACK ADMINISTRATION POLICIES." That's an interesting take. Here's the email excerpt: "As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies....We provide the intelligence as we see it—and let the facts alone speak to the policymaker.'' Tuesday's Post cited tidbits of the same memo. Its conclusion: "CIA CHIEF SEEKS TO REASSURE EMPLOYEES."
Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at
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The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post all lead with Mosul, which a few thousand U.S. troops entered to try to put down a rebellion. The Wall Street Journal tops its world-wide newsbox (at least online) with video showing the apparent execution of Margaret Hassan, the British-Iraqi aid official who was kidnapped last month. There had been widespread criticism among Iraqis of the kidnapping, including on militant Web sites. USA Today all-but-ignores the fighting and leads with key Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) telling the paper he's lukewarm on President Bush's hankering to radically change the tax code. "I'm not one to spend a lot of time tilting at windmills," said Grassley, whose support would be key since any tax bill would have to clear the Finance Committee, which he chairs.
Citing the military, the Post and NYT both say there doesn't appear to be much resistance in Mosul. The LAT is the only paper with a dateline from the city, and it has a different take. The paper describes a "series of bloody attacks and counterattacks" yesterday: Among them: A suicide car bomb killed "several" Iraqi troops and civilians, three police stations were mortared, and the Kurdish party HQ was repeatedly attacked. One U.S. commander told the Post that 80 percent of Mosul's police haven't shown up for work since the insurgent offensive began last week.
There was also fighting in Baji, Baqubah, Buhritz, Ramadi, and Balad. One GI was reported killed and a handful wounded. There was also another attack on an oil pipeline. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government said it had arrested the leader of one major insurgent group.
Continue Article
Marking his return, the Post's Iraq lead is written by Pulitzer-man Anthony Shadid. The story includes an interview with a top insurgent. "The Americans have opened the gates of hell," said Abdullah Janabi. The really interesting thing is the location of the interview: Fallujah. "I am here. You can see me," said Janabi, surrounded by bodyguards inside an undamaged house.
Most of the papers notice that Navy engineers came into the town yesterday, tried to do a quick reconstruction assessment, and then hustled out under sniper fire. "We'll never get them all," one officer told the LAT. "They're everywhere."
Everybody notes the military is investigating after a now-infamous video showed a Marine shooting a wounded and apparently unarmed insurgent. Only the LAT fronts it, and headlines the fallout: Arab stations played the video endlessly, unedited. The LAT also mentions that British TV seems to have captured a similar incident.
The papers mention in passing that GIs arrested a top Sunni politician; he's a member of the party that recently announced an elections boycott. The LAT says the move "startled" Iraqi officials. Nobody mentions the military's explanation or lack of thereof.
Everybody fronts President Bush's formal nomination of Condoleezza Rice as the next Secretary of State. As expected, Bush also named current Rice deputy Stephen Hadley to succeed her. No real news here, so the papers mostly repeat yesterday's refrain. As the WSJ puts it, the president is showing a "preference for close aides known above all for unstinting devotion to him." The Post adds: "Aides said Bush and Rice know each other so well they have conversations based on body language."
Most of the papers say next off the plank will be Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (though the NYT dissents and says he might stay into next year).
The Post fronts Republicans proposing to change House rules and allow indicted legislators to keep leadership roles. The proposal is a Thank You to Majority Leader Tom DeLay who may get the book thrown at him by a Texas grand jury investigating funding of one of his PACs.
A Page One NYT piece flags an email intel boss Porter Goss send around the Agency Monday: "NEW C.I.A. CHIEF TELLS WORKERS TO BACK ADMINISTRATION POLICIES." That's an interesting take. Here's the email excerpt: "As agency employees we do not identify with, support or champion opposition to the administration or its policies....We provide the intelligence as we see it—and let the facts alone speak to the policymaker.'' Tuesday's Post cited tidbits of the same memo. Its conclusion: "CIA CHIEF SEEKS TO REASSURE EMPLOYEES."
Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at
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November 18, 2004MILITARY ASSESSMENT
Marine Officers See Risk in Cuts in Falluja ForceBy ERIC SCHMITT and ROBERT F. WORTH
ASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - Senior Marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that if American troop levels in the Falluja area are significantly reduced during reconstruction there, as has been planned, insurgents in the region will rebound from their defeat. The rebels could thwart the retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate the local population and derail elections set for January, the officers say.
They have further advised that despite taking heavy casualties in the weeklong battle, the insurgents will continue to grow in number, wage guerrilla attacks and try to foment unrest among Falluja's returning residents, emphasizing that expectations for improved conditions have not been met.
The pessimistic counsel is contained in a seven-page classified report prepared by intelligence officers in the First Marine Expeditionary Force, or I MEF, last weekend as the offensive in Falluja was winding down. The assessment was distributed to senior Marine and Army officers in Iraq, where one officer called it "brutally honest."
Marine commanders marshaled about 12,000 marines and soldiers, and roughly 2,500 Iraqi forces for the Falluja campaign, but they always expected to send thousands of American troops back to other locations in Iraq eventually, after the major fighting in Falluja. This intelligence assessment suggests that such a move would be dangerous.
Some senior military officers in Iraq and Washington who have read the report have cautioned that the assessment is a subjective judgment by some Marine intelligence officers near the front lines and does not reflect the views of all intelligence officials and senior commanders in Iraq.
"The assessment of the enemy is a worst-case assessment," Brig. Gen. John DeFreitas III of the Army, the senior military intelligence officer in Iraq, said of the Marine report in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "We have no intention of creating a vacuum and walking away from Falluja."
The report offers a stark counterpoint to more upbeat assessments voiced by military commanders in the wake of the Falluja operation, which they say completed its goals well ahead of schedule and with fewer American and Iraqi civilian casualties than expected.
Although the resistance crumbled in the face of the offensive, the report warns that if American forces do not remain in sufficient numbers for some time, "The enemy will be able to effectively defeat I MEF's ability to accomplish its primary objectives of developing an effective Iraqi security force and setting the conditions for successful Iraqi elections.
The American military and Iraqi government are poised to pour humanitarian aid and conduct reconstruction efforts in the battle-scarred city, most of whose nearly 300,000 residents fled before the fighting began last week.
"The view from the tactical level has been generally more pessimistic," said one senior Marine officer in Washington, referring to the view from the ground. "They may well be right, but I would also say that tactical intel is almost always more dour than that done at the strategic level."
Details of the report and some of its verbatim findings were provided to The New York Times this week by four active-duty or retired military officers in Iraq and Washington who have read the report or heard descriptions of it.
The assessment draws on intelligence gathered in the Falluja operation and 10 intelligence reports compiled in the last six months in the Marines' area of responsibility in Iraq, principally Al Anbar and Babil Provinces, officials said.
Senior officers said the intelligence report was meant to help top Marine commanders in Iraq, including Lieut. Gen. John F. Sattler and Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, and their military superiors in Baghdad, decide how many American forces to keep in the Falluja-Ramadi area when the offensive is over and reconstruction efforts are in full swing.
Senior officers have said that they would keep a sizable American military presence in and around Falluja in the long reconstruction phase that has just begun, until sufficiently trained and equipped Iraqi forces could take the lead in providing security.
"It will take a security presence for a while until a well-trained Iraqi security force can take over the presence in Falluja and maintain security so that the insurgents don't come back, as they have tried to do in every one of the cities that we have thrown them out of," Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, said on Nov. 8.
American commanders have expressed disappointment in some of the Iraqis they have been training, especially members of the Iraqi police force. Other troops have performed well, the officers have said.
The commanders are looking at a range of options on how many troops to keep in the area, depending on the security situation and how quickly Iraqi forces can take control. But if many American troops and the better-trained specialized Iraqi forces, like the commando and special police units, are committed to Falluja for a long time, they will not be available to go elsewhere in Iraq, possibly creating critical shortfalls.
Already, hundreds of American troops in an Army Stryker Brigade in the Falluja area have been returned to Mosul in the north to help quell insurgent attacks there.
The Marine report paints a generally gloomy picture of the insurgents' expected reaction if American forces are reduced too much during the critical reconstruction.
"At current projected force levels, the enemy will be able to maintain a sufficient level of intimidation of the Al Anbar and Babil Province populations and infiltrate or otherwise further degrade the capabilities" of the Iraqi security forces in western and south-central Iraq, where the Marines operate, the report says.
The insurgency has shown "outstanding resilience" and the militants' willingness to fight is bolstered by four main factors, the report says. One, the tribal and insurgent leaders understand the limitations of the United Nations, American elections and internal Iraqi government politics, and try to exploit them. Two, they are skilled at turning battlefield defeats into symbolic victories, just as Saddam Hussein did after the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Insurgents will make the battle of Falluja into an excellent recruiting tool, the report says.
Three, the insurgents are dedicated propagandists who use the Internet and other means to feed exaggerated and contrived reporting from the battlefield to jihadists in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East. Al Jazeera and Arab media then pick it up, the report says.
Finally, the report says, the insurgents believe they are more willing to suffer casualties than the American military and public, and "will continue to find refuge among sympathetic tribes and former regime members."
The report predicts that insurgents will try to disrupt voter registration, which the officers say is already two weeks behind in Al Anbar Province, and that elections in the region will be cast into doubt.
Officers who have read the report played down its dire warnings and pointed out several successes noted in the document. The report, for instance, says that the Falluja operation achieved its basic goal, to deny the insurgents their largest sanctuary in Iraq, and has forced the network of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to move to a new base of operations in the country, probably Mosul.
The report also says that the number of attacks in Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar Province, has declined by 40 percent in the last few weeks, after security was heightened in the region, according toMaj. Douglas M. Powell, a Marine spokesman in Washington.
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and Robert F. Worth from Falluja.
Marine Officers See Risk in Cuts in Falluja ForceBy ERIC SCHMITT and ROBERT F. WORTH
ASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - Senior Marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that if American troop levels in the Falluja area are significantly reduced during reconstruction there, as has been planned, insurgents in the region will rebound from their defeat. The rebels could thwart the retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate the local population and derail elections set for January, the officers say.
They have further advised that despite taking heavy casualties in the weeklong battle, the insurgents will continue to grow in number, wage guerrilla attacks and try to foment unrest among Falluja's returning residents, emphasizing that expectations for improved conditions have not been met.
The pessimistic counsel is contained in a seven-page classified report prepared by intelligence officers in the First Marine Expeditionary Force, or I MEF, last weekend as the offensive in Falluja was winding down. The assessment was distributed to senior Marine and Army officers in Iraq, where one officer called it "brutally honest."
Marine commanders marshaled about 12,000 marines and soldiers, and roughly 2,500 Iraqi forces for the Falluja campaign, but they always expected to send thousands of American troops back to other locations in Iraq eventually, after the major fighting in Falluja. This intelligence assessment suggests that such a move would be dangerous.
Some senior military officers in Iraq and Washington who have read the report have cautioned that the assessment is a subjective judgment by some Marine intelligence officers near the front lines and does not reflect the views of all intelligence officials and senior commanders in Iraq.
"The assessment of the enemy is a worst-case assessment," Brig. Gen. John DeFreitas III of the Army, the senior military intelligence officer in Iraq, said of the Marine report in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "We have no intention of creating a vacuum and walking away from Falluja."
The report offers a stark counterpoint to more upbeat assessments voiced by military commanders in the wake of the Falluja operation, which they say completed its goals well ahead of schedule and with fewer American and Iraqi civilian casualties than expected.
Although the resistance crumbled in the face of the offensive, the report warns that if American forces do not remain in sufficient numbers for some time, "The enemy will be able to effectively defeat I MEF's ability to accomplish its primary objectives of developing an effective Iraqi security force and setting the conditions for successful Iraqi elections.
The American military and Iraqi government are poised to pour humanitarian aid and conduct reconstruction efforts in the battle-scarred city, most of whose nearly 300,000 residents fled before the fighting began last week.
"The view from the tactical level has been generally more pessimistic," said one senior Marine officer in Washington, referring to the view from the ground. "They may well be right, but I would also say that tactical intel is almost always more dour than that done at the strategic level."
Details of the report and some of its verbatim findings were provided to The New York Times this week by four active-duty or retired military officers in Iraq and Washington who have read the report or heard descriptions of it.
The assessment draws on intelligence gathered in the Falluja operation and 10 intelligence reports compiled in the last six months in the Marines' area of responsibility in Iraq, principally Al Anbar and Babil Provinces, officials said.
Senior officers said the intelligence report was meant to help top Marine commanders in Iraq, including Lieut. Gen. John F. Sattler and Maj. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, and their military superiors in Baghdad, decide how many American forces to keep in the Falluja-Ramadi area when the offensive is over and reconstruction efforts are in full swing.
Senior officers have said that they would keep a sizable American military presence in and around Falluja in the long reconstruction phase that has just begun, until sufficiently trained and equipped Iraqi forces could take the lead in providing security.
"It will take a security presence for a while until a well-trained Iraqi security force can take over the presence in Falluja and maintain security so that the insurgents don't come back, as they have tried to do in every one of the cities that we have thrown them out of," Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, said on Nov. 8.
American commanders have expressed disappointment in some of the Iraqis they have been training, especially members of the Iraqi police force. Other troops have performed well, the officers have said.
The commanders are looking at a range of options on how many troops to keep in the area, depending on the security situation and how quickly Iraqi forces can take control. But if many American troops and the better-trained specialized Iraqi forces, like the commando and special police units, are committed to Falluja for a long time, they will not be available to go elsewhere in Iraq, possibly creating critical shortfalls.
Already, hundreds of American troops in an Army Stryker Brigade in the Falluja area have been returned to Mosul in the north to help quell insurgent attacks there.
The Marine report paints a generally gloomy picture of the insurgents' expected reaction if American forces are reduced too much during the critical reconstruction.
"At current projected force levels, the enemy will be able to maintain a sufficient level of intimidation of the Al Anbar and Babil Province populations and infiltrate or otherwise further degrade the capabilities" of the Iraqi security forces in western and south-central Iraq, where the Marines operate, the report says.
The insurgency has shown "outstanding resilience" and the militants' willingness to fight is bolstered by four main factors, the report says. One, the tribal and insurgent leaders understand the limitations of the United Nations, American elections and internal Iraqi government politics, and try to exploit them. Two, they are skilled at turning battlefield defeats into symbolic victories, just as Saddam Hussein did after the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Insurgents will make the battle of Falluja into an excellent recruiting tool, the report says.
Three, the insurgents are dedicated propagandists who use the Internet and other means to feed exaggerated and contrived reporting from the battlefield to jihadists in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East. Al Jazeera and Arab media then pick it up, the report says.
Finally, the report says, the insurgents believe they are more willing to suffer casualties than the American military and public, and "will continue to find refuge among sympathetic tribes and former regime members."
The report predicts that insurgents will try to disrupt voter registration, which the officers say is already two weeks behind in Al Anbar Province, and that elections in the region will be cast into doubt.
Officers who have read the report played down its dire warnings and pointed out several successes noted in the document. The report, for instance, says that the Falluja operation achieved its basic goal, to deny the insurgents their largest sanctuary in Iraq, and has forced the network of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to move to a new base of operations in the country, probably Mosul.
The report also says that the number of attacks in Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar Province, has declined by 40 percent in the last few weeks, after security was heightened in the region, according toMaj. Douglas M. Powell, a Marine spokesman in Washington.
Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and Robert F. Worth from Falluja.
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NASA Calls Off Launch of Black Hole-Hunter
1 hour, 10 minutes ago
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - With just hours left in the countdown, NASA (news - web sites) called off the launch Wednesday of a spacecraft that will hunt for emerging black holes.
Missed Tech Tuesday?Today, satellite radio is all the rage. But do you choose XM or Sirius?
The launch was postponed for at least a day because of trouble with an electronic box aboard the unmanned Delta rocket, part of the safety system for destroying the vehicle if it flies off course.
Once in orbit, NASA's Swift spacecraft will swivel quickly to detect gamma ray bursts in the universe, which scientists believe represent the creation of black holes. Black holes are believed to be the invisible remains of collapsed stars; black holes' gravitational pull is so great that not even light can escape from one.
Besides NASA, the Italian Space Agency and Britain's particle physics and astronomy research council are taking part in the $250 million mission.
___
On the Net:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/main/index.html
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Suicide Bomber, Clashes in Iraq Kill 27
11 minutes ago
By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber blasted an American convoy north of Baghdad and U.S. troops battled insurgents west of the capital Wednesday as a wave of violence across Iraq (news - web sites)'s Sunni Muslim heartland killed at least 27 people.
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Suicide Bomber, Clashes in Iraq Kill 27 AP - 11 minutes ago
·
House Panel Questions Role of French Bank AP - 1 hour, 45 minutes ago
·
A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq AP - 1 hour, 46 minutes ago
Special Coverage
American forces pursued their search-and-destroy mission against the remaining holdouts in the former insurgent bastion of Fallujah, and to the north, American forces pressed an offensive to reclaim part of the city of Mosul from militants.
November became one of Iraq's bloodiest months as the U.S. death toll in the war in Iraq reached 1,214, according to figures released by the Defense Department.
On Wednesday, a suicide attacker drove his bomb-laden car into a U.S. convoy during fierce fighting in the town of Beiji, 155 miles north of the Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 12, including three American soldiers. Another attack on a convoy of civilian contractors in Beiji caused no casualties.
Elsewhere, a three-hour gunbattle between militants and U.S. forces after nightfall left seven people dead and 13 hurt in Ramadi, a city west of Fallujah.
Insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades, mortar and Kalashnikov rifles at American forces in the city center, Zayout district and along the main highway in town, said Abdel Karim al-Hiti of Ramadi General Hospital.
Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad, falls within the restive Sunni Triangle area north and west of the capital where the bulk of insurgent attacks have erupted.
Although fighting has ebbed in Fallujah, it has not ceased. The U.S. military said pockets of insurgents remain even though the city is fully occupied by American troops.
On Wednesday, heavy machine-gun fire and explosions rang out in south-central parts of the city as U.S. Marines hunted remaining fighters. In the northern Jolan neighborhood, Marines killed seven insurgents who officers said had sneaked back into the city by swimming the Euphrates River.
Bullets snapped overhead, and Iraqis collecting bodies of the dead ran for cover behind walls and in buildings as Marines returned fire. After 15 minutes of fighting, three insurgents were dead and one Marine was slightly injured in the hand, officers said.
The rush of warplanes streaking through the low-lying clouds shook the city and blasts sent smoke into the sky. The U.S. military said airstrikes Wednesday were concentrated in southwestern Fallujah, destroying enemy positions.
Iraqi officials have acknowledged that insurgent leaders Omar Hadid and Sheik Abdullah al-Janabi, along with Jordanian terror boss Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have not been captured and may have slipped away.
A man identified as Hadid appeared Wednesday with three other hooded gunmen on LBCI Lebanese television and dismissed claims that the Americans control the Fallujah.
"They did not know that they fell in the trap of death," he said. He insisted insurgents were advancing inside Fallujah toward Jolan and the downtown market, adding "I challenge any force which claims to control Fallujah."
Reports surfaced that 31 policemen had been kidnapped in the town of Rutba near the Jordanian border by armed men who stormed a hotel where the officers were staying.
The Karbala police officer who made the report said he escaped a raid Sunday by armed men in the hotel, according to a police spokesman.
The officer said about 20 men attacked the hotel, covering the captives' heads with black bags and tying their hands before dragging them away, the spokesman said. The officer said he was beaten but was not abducted.
Adnan Asadi, deputy interior minister for administrative affairs, said the abduction reports were "not true." He said the police sent for training in Jordan had not returned to Iraq.
In Mosul, where insurgents launched an uprising last week, the situation appeared calmer, with U.S. and Iraqi troops encountering isolated small-arms attacks, the military said.
A U.S.-led operation that began Tuesday was aimed at regaining full control of the city, where gunmen stormed police stations, bridges and political offices last week. The city's police force had been overwhelmed and in many places failed to put up a fight. Some officers allegedly cooperated with insurgents.
Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the U.S. commander in Mosul, told CNN the offensive, which involved up to 2,500 U.S. and Iraqi forces, was aiming to "disrupt (insurgents), keep them from getting organized wherever they may be, try to keep them from accomplishing their goal."
The operation swept through the western part of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secured about a dozen police stations.
"The Iraqi government maintained control throughout the city. There were certainly pockets where we had to re-establish that control, but there was never any police stations or other government facilities that were controlled for long periods of time," he said.
Spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said the biggest challenge remaining for the U.S. military was to shore up the police force of the city, 220 miles north of Baghdad.
"The police did not perform as we hoped they would," he said.
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GIs Find Belongings of Once-Missing Marine
Wed Nov 17, 3:45 PM ET
FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. troops have recovered belongings of a U.S. Marine who was once feared beheaded by Iraqi insurgents after disappearing from his unit, U.S. officials said.
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Slideshow: Iraq
Latest headlines:
·
Suicide Bomber, Clashes in Iraq Kill 27 AP - 9 minutes ago
·
House Panel Questions Role of French Bank AP - 1 hour, 43 minutes ago
·
A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq AP - 1 hour, 43 minutes ago
Special Coverage
The personal effects of Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun were found last week in a box on the third floor of a three-story commercial building in Fallujah, the officials said. The property included an identification card, a uniform and a book.
Hassoun, of West Jordan, Utah, disappeared from his base near Fallujah in June and later turned up at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. It remains unclear how he traveled from Iraq (news - web sites) to Lebanon, where he has relatives.
On June 27, Arab television showed a videotape of a blindfolded Hassoun, a sword hanging over his head. At one point while he was missing, a group claiming to represent his captors announced that he had been beheaded after being lured from the base by a love affair.
Hassoun returned in July to the Marine base at Camp Lejeune, N.C. In September, medical authorities at Camp Lejeune declared him fit for full duty, allowing him to return to the brigade motor pool where he worked before he deployed to Iraq in February.
Rather Again Finds Himself As News Maker
NEW YORK (AP) -- From his pitched exchange with President Bush's father to bizarre incidents like his 1981 mugging, Dan Rather has become the news with uncomfortable frequency during his four decades at CBS.
He has prevailed as a leading TV journalist who, nearing his 73rd birthday, still can't resist a big story, any more than he can resist his homespun Ratherisms (like when a story is so startling it "will melt the wax right out of your ears").
He has been anchorman of "The CBS Evening News" since taking over the job from the retiring Walter Cronkite in 1981 - through ratings leadership and, more recently, in third place.
And he has faced repeated public embarrassments, large and small, while remaining a favorite target of conservatives who branded him a leader of the liberal media.
It happened again Monday, as Rather apologized for questionable documents used to support a "60 Minutes" story he reported on President Bush's Vietnam War-era National Guard service.
At a time when he might be proudly taking stock of his CBS News tenure (which began with his coverage from Dallas of President Kennedy's assassination), Rather's admission that he and his colleagues had been misled in a story investigating the Bush's credibility delivered a tough blow to his own.
As CBS declared that it would commission an independent panel to review the circumstances of the "60 Minutes" investigation, the conservative Web site NewsMax.com was conducting an online poll. Among its questions: Should Dan Rather resign?
This latest twist in the "60 Minutes" story, which stirred questions almost immediately upon its airing Sept. 8, was a reminder, to many, of Rather's clash with Vice President George H.W. Bush during a live, nine-minute interview on "The CBS Evening News" in 1988.
"I don't want to be argumentative, Mr. Vice President," Rather said at one point.
"Yes, you do, Dan," Bush shot back, managing to frame the interview as an ambush.
The encounter with Rather scored points among supporters of Bush, then running for president, and, for them, it served as more evidence that Rather was slanted against conservatives.
As White House correspondent in 1974, Rather had a memorable exchange with President Nixon, who asked: "Are you running for something?" Rather replied, "No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?"
Rather, who claims independence in his politics, is today the focus of a Web site devoted to his supposed biases, Ratherbiased.com. And 20 years ago, he inspired a campaign by Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who called for 1 million fellow conservatives to buy CBS stock and "become Dan Rather's boss."
But if he has long been a lightning rod for conservatives, he has also seemed to invite odd occurrences that seemed to be all the odder just for having happened to him.
During a cab ride in Chicago years ago, Rather was forced to stick his head out the window and call for help after the driver took off with him, speeding through the city and refusing to stop.
And in 1986 while strolling home in Manhattan, Rather was stopped by a man who shouted, "Kenneth, what's the frequency?" and then beat him up. The incident was greeted with skepticism by some, and it made Rather the butt of jokes.
A decade later, Rather identified his assailant as the man serving time for shooting to death an NBC technician outside the "Today" show studios in 1994. But this sad epilogue failed to correct the mythical proportions of the tale. What happened to Rather had even inspired an R.E.M. song.
A newsman who has dodged bullets and braved hurricanes to get his story, Rather is also remembered, mostly with derision, for having signed off his newscast by saying "Courage." It was only for a few days, nearly 20 years ago.
NEW YORK (AP) -- From his pitched exchange with President Bush's father to bizarre incidents like his 1981 mugging, Dan Rather has become the news with uncomfortable frequency during his four decades at CBS.
He has prevailed as a leading TV journalist who, nearing his 73rd birthday, still can't resist a big story, any more than he can resist his homespun Ratherisms (like when a story is so startling it "will melt the wax right out of your ears").
He has been anchorman of "The CBS Evening News" since taking over the job from the retiring Walter Cronkite in 1981 - through ratings leadership and, more recently, in third place.
And he has faced repeated public embarrassments, large and small, while remaining a favorite target of conservatives who branded him a leader of the liberal media.
It happened again Monday, as Rather apologized for questionable documents used to support a "60 Minutes" story he reported on President Bush's Vietnam War-era National Guard service.
At a time when he might be proudly taking stock of his CBS News tenure (which began with his coverage from Dallas of President Kennedy's assassination), Rather's admission that he and his colleagues had been misled in a story investigating the Bush's credibility delivered a tough blow to his own.
As CBS declared that it would commission an independent panel to review the circumstances of the "60 Minutes" investigation, the conservative Web site NewsMax.com was conducting an online poll. Among its questions: Should Dan Rather resign?
This latest twist in the "60 Minutes" story, which stirred questions almost immediately upon its airing Sept. 8, was a reminder, to many, of Rather's clash with Vice President George H.W. Bush during a live, nine-minute interview on "The CBS Evening News" in 1988.
"I don't want to be argumentative, Mr. Vice President," Rather said at one point.
"Yes, you do, Dan," Bush shot back, managing to frame the interview as an ambush.
The encounter with Rather scored points among supporters of Bush, then running for president, and, for them, it served as more evidence that Rather was slanted against conservatives.
As White House correspondent in 1974, Rather had a memorable exchange with President Nixon, who asked: "Are you running for something?" Rather replied, "No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?"
Rather, who claims independence in his politics, is today the focus of a Web site devoted to his supposed biases, Ratherbiased.com. And 20 years ago, he inspired a campaign by Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who called for 1 million fellow conservatives to buy CBS stock and "become Dan Rather's boss."
But if he has long been a lightning rod for conservatives, he has also seemed to invite odd occurrences that seemed to be all the odder just for having happened to him.
During a cab ride in Chicago years ago, Rather was forced to stick his head out the window and call for help after the driver took off with him, speeding through the city and refusing to stop.
And in 1986 while strolling home in Manhattan, Rather was stopped by a man who shouted, "Kenneth, what's the frequency?" and then beat him up. The incident was greeted with skepticism by some, and it made Rather the butt of jokes.
A decade later, Rather identified his assailant as the man serving time for shooting to death an NBC technician outside the "Today" show studios in 1994. But this sad epilogue failed to correct the mythical proportions of the tale. What happened to Rather had even inspired an R.E.M. song.
A newsman who has dodged bullets and braved hurricanes to get his story, Rather is also remembered, mostly with derision, for having signed off his newscast by saying "Courage." It was only for a few days, nearly 20 years ago.
Monday Night Football" rankles FCC
- - - - - - - - - - - -By Jennifer Kerr
Nov. 17, 2004 Washington -- The nation's chief media regulator expressed disappointment Wednesday over the steamy locker room opening to ABC's "Monday Night Football" broadcast.
"I wonder if Walt Disney would be proud," said Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.
The opening, which has generated complaints to ABC and the FCC, featured actress Nicollette Sheridan in the locker room, supposedly dressed only in a white towel. She drops the towel and jumps into the arms of Philadelphia Eagles star Terrell Owens. Sheridan was shown only from behind and above the waist after dropping the towel.
Powell questioned the judgment of those who decided to air the scene.
"It would seem to me that while we get a lot of broadcasting companies complaining about indecency enforcement, they seem to be continuing to be willing to keep the issue at the forefront, keep it hot and steamy in order to get financial gains and the free advertising it provides," Powell said during an interview on CNBC.
An FCC spokeswoman said the agency has received a number of complaints about the ABC broadcast, though she declined to say how many.
The complaints will be reviewed and the commission will decide whether or not to open an investigation that could result in a fine against the network. The maximum indecency fine is $32,500 per incident.
ABC quickly apologized for the locker room intro. And the NFL called it "inappropriate and unsuitable for our 'Monday Night Football' audience."
ABC has broadcast "Monday Night Football" with a five-second delay this season, a precaution after singer Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at February's Super Bowl halftime show -- when singer Justin Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson's outfit, exposing her right breast to a TV audience of some 90 million people.
CBS is protesting a proposed FCC fine of $550,000 for the halftime show.
As for his tenure at the agency, Powell said he'd be around for "a while yet."
"I still am having fun. There are still things that are really significantly important to me to complete," he said. "Right now, I just have no plans of going anywhere."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Sound OffSend us a Letter to the Editor
- - - - - - - - - - - -By Jennifer Kerr
Nov. 17, 2004 Washington -- The nation's chief media regulator expressed disappointment Wednesday over the steamy locker room opening to ABC's "Monday Night Football" broadcast.
"I wonder if Walt Disney would be proud," said Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.
The opening, which has generated complaints to ABC and the FCC, featured actress Nicollette Sheridan in the locker room, supposedly dressed only in a white towel. She drops the towel and jumps into the arms of Philadelphia Eagles star Terrell Owens. Sheridan was shown only from behind and above the waist after dropping the towel.
Powell questioned the judgment of those who decided to air the scene.
"It would seem to me that while we get a lot of broadcasting companies complaining about indecency enforcement, they seem to be continuing to be willing to keep the issue at the forefront, keep it hot and steamy in order to get financial gains and the free advertising it provides," Powell said during an interview on CNBC.
An FCC spokeswoman said the agency has received a number of complaints about the ABC broadcast, though she declined to say how many.
The complaints will be reviewed and the commission will decide whether or not to open an investigation that could result in a fine against the network. The maximum indecency fine is $32,500 per incident.
ABC quickly apologized for the locker room intro. And the NFL called it "inappropriate and unsuitable for our 'Monday Night Football' audience."
ABC has broadcast "Monday Night Football" with a five-second delay this season, a precaution after singer Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at February's Super Bowl halftime show -- when singer Justin Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson's outfit, exposing her right breast to a TV audience of some 90 million people.
CBS is protesting a proposed FCC fine of $550,000 for the halftime show.
As for his tenure at the agency, Powell said he'd be around for "a while yet."
"I still am having fun. There are still things that are really significantly important to me to complete," he said. "Right now, I just have no plans of going anywhere."
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Sound OffSend us a Letter to the Editor
Gambling on Harry ReidHave the Democrats hit the jackpot with the new minority leader from Nevada -- or crapped out?
- - - - - - - - - - - -By Michael Green
Nov. 17, 2004 If you know Washington politics, you've heard of Harry Reid, elected Tuesday to replace the defeated Tom Daschle as Senate minority leader. If you don't know Washington politics, you are about to learn much more about him.
The Nevada Democrat won his fourth Senate term on Nov. 2 with more than 60 percent of the vote -- his largest margin in a statewide race in a 40-year political career. And after his party lost four Senate seats in the same race, he was well positioned to become the Senate's most powerful Democrat.
Reid entered the Senate in 1987 with South Dakota's Daschle. They were similar: moderates from conservative states, low-key, hardworking, partisan but able to work well on both sides of the aisle. As Daschle moved up, so did Reid. After winning a third term in 1998, Reid became Daschle's whip, or assistant leader, running floor operations.
But when Daschle became the first Senate party leader in more than 50 years to lose his reelection bid, Reid promptly spoke to his friend and soon-to-be ex-colleague, then began rounding up votes. The way was clear for Reid to become the leader of the Senate opposition to George W. Bush.
Predicting Reid's effectiveness, especially as compared with Daschle's, is somewhat difficult. Daschle managed to appear obstructionist enough to inspire Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to end a long-standing gentlemen's agreement among members of the congressional leadership not to campaign against each other. By contrast, Mitch McConnell, Reid's Republican counterpart as whip, whom no one has accused of hiding his partisanship, is one of those praising Reid, personally and professionally.
The Democratic caucus's loss of some of its more conservative members (Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia) will certainly shape the role Reid ends up playing. The 44 remaining Senate Democrats (plus independent Jim Jeffords) may seem like a slightly more liberal group, but they have certainly heard the discussion of the role that "moral values" played during the campaign. As a moderate -- and a more conservative one than Daschle -- in a rebuilding party, Reid might carry more weight with his colleagues than his predecessor did as a barometer on the issues. In particular, as a pro-life Mormon, he will provide a counterweight when Republicans beat the abortion drum. NARAL rates him as pro-life, having voted for choice only 29 percent of the time, compared with Daschle's 50 percent.
As for Bush's inevitable nominees to the Supreme Court, Reid is shrewd and partisan enough to know when to fight and when to go along. Despite his leanings on abortion, he was among the 48 Democrats who opposed the confirmation of Clarence Thomas -- nominated by a more moderate President Bush.
As Reid becomes a more familiar presence on television and in print, Americans, Democratic and Republican alike, will find out a lot more about him. And they're likely to be pleased. In the meantime, here's some of his history.
To know Harry Reid, you need to know Searchlight. Searchlight is a stop on the highway between Las Vegas and Laughlin. Its residents mostly live in trailers and congregate at a casino. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was a successful mining camp and has occasionally revived.
Inez and Harry Reid lived in a shack in Searchlight and had four boys. The youngest, Harry, was born on Dec. 2, 1939. One of his lingering memories is of his mother picking tiny rocks out of his father's back after a long day in the mines. He often joined his father underground. "I never did any drilling, but I ran the hoist on a lot of occasions, and I did a lot of mucking," he later said.
His parents had it tough. His father committed suicide, a victim of ill health, alcohol and depression. His mother lost all of her teeth, Reid recently told a group dedicating the new dental school at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and one of his first acts when he had enough money from practicing law was to buy his mother a set of dentures.
To continue his education beyond junior high school, Reid had to leave Searchlight. "Even though I began to spend less and less time in my hometown, my thoughts often returned to the days of my youth. Most of all, I realized how much I loved the desert," he wrote in "Searchlight: The Camp That Didn't Fail," a scholarly history of the town he published with the University of Nevada Press.
Now he has returned. He built a home on a hill overlooking Searchlight. His political action committee is called the Searchlight Leadership Fund, and he keeps a Searchlight map in his Senate office.
Reid knows the importance of a balancing act. He was born in a "red" portion of the state, the old Nevada of miners and ranchers, but his votes come from the "blue" parts, the new Nevada in which gaming dominates. Reid tries to represent all of these interests, yet rarely receives much support outside Las Vegas and Reno. Still, their votes are enough to have elected him four times to the Senate.
In both gaming and mining, corporations and their workers want to be left alone, but the feelings of miners and ranchers in rural Nevada may be stronger: Some federal employees with the Bureau of Land Management have even claimed to fear for their lives. Rural Nevadans tend not to be culturally conservative so much as libertarian.
Reid gets fewer of their votes, but he knows them and their thinking, thanks to his many campaigns and his ties to Searchlight. One of his old teachers sees another effect of his beginnings on him: "I think, now, that it must have been the spirit of the mines in Searchlight, something raw and untamed and confident. He had no fear."
To know Harry Reid, you need to know that teacher, Mike O'Callaghan. In 1956, O'Callaghan went to Henderson, Nev., then a small industrial town and now one of the nation's fastest-growing cities, to teach social studies at Basic High School. He also coached boxing at the local boys' club.
Since entering high school, Reid had stayed with Henderson families during the week and hitchhiked back and forth to Searchlight on weekends. In Henderson he met Landra Gould, who was a year behind him in school, and later married her. He also won his first major office as student body president, and became a boxer.
Reid's parents had imbued him with a strong work ethic, and O'Callaghan added to it -- and not just in class. As a boxing coach, O'Callaghan used to send the boys jogging up the steep grade to Railroad Pass, en route from Henderson to Boulder City. O'Callaghan followed in his new Buick and made clear to the boys that if they stopped or fell, he didn't plan to use his brakes. They didn't stop or fall.
After Reid graduated, O'Callaghan helped him get a scholarship to college, then a patronage job as a Capitol Hill policeman so he could afford law school. And he lent Reid the money he needed to take the Nevada bar exam, which he passed before finishing law school.
O'Callaghan left teaching to hold numerous state and federal administrative jobs, then ran for governor in 1970, with Reid as his running mate. O'Callaghan was the underdog against a better-financed, more prominent opponent. By then Reid had spent one term in Nevada's Assembly, where he introduced a slew of bills, including the first bill in Nevada to try to do something about air pollution.
Reid was O'Callaghan's lieutenant only for the first of his two terms. Amid oil crises, inflation and unemployment, they expanded government services without raising taxes. "There has never been a governor and lieutenant governor that worked more closely than we did," Reid said later. "There was never a meeting he didn't invite me to."
In 1974, Reid ran for an open Senate seat against former Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt. He ran a poor campaign and lost by 611 votes -- to a Republican in the first congressional election after Richard Nixon's resignation. The next year, trying to keep his name before the public, Reid ran for mayor of Las Vegas and lost. Before his 36th birthday, Reid appeared to be a political has-been.
But O'Callaghan didn't give up on Reid, said longtime Nevada lawyer and political figure Ralph Denton. "Mike knew what Harry was, and he appointed him chairman of the Gaming Commission. The people who believed he was too young and weak, I think, soon ... came to the conclusion he was neither too young nor too weak. He's a strong man."
In the late 1970s, federal and state investigations revealed the involvement of organized crime at several Strip hotels that were supposed to be clean. Crime families in Kansas City, Mo., pulled the strings at the Tropicana, where mob representative Joe Agosto claimed influence with state officials. "I got a clean face in my pocket," he said. The reference was clear. Reid, then as now, looked boyish and light-skinned. Reid responded by calling him a hoodlum and said, "Someday, he will get what he deserves." Agosto later testified for the federal government against the mob. State officials investigated and cleared Reid, and the FBI took the unusual step of announcing that it had no evidence to suggest Reid was tied to the mob. And the mob was displeased enough with him that Reid later found a bomb attached to a family car.
A year after declining an offer to continue as Gaming Commission chairman, Reid won the first of two terms in the House, then moved to the Senate. O'Callaghan never again ran for office. When he died in 2004, Reid delivered one of the eulogies. "If you were doing your best, it was good enough for Mike. If you were right and fighting for it, Mike was by your side. What more could someone ask for in a father figure than Mike O'Callaghan," Reid, not a publicly emotional person, said with tears in his eyes, his voice breaking.
To know Harry Reid, you need to know Nevada's political history. Sen. Pat McCarran served from 1933 to 1954 and held Washington in thrall in the late 1940s and early 1950s as chairman of the Judiciary Committee and its internal security subcommittee, where he hunted communists with as much single-mindedness as Javert seeking Jean Valjean.
But McCarran also held a senior position on the Appropriations Committee and used that power accordingly. Nevada received military bases, a magnesium plant, airport funding and numerous other pork-barrel projects through his efforts. He used his clout to block Sen. Estes Kefauver and his supporters from attacking the gaming industry.
Nor did McCarran hesitate to use that clout back home. He tried to maneuver other Democrats like pawns on a chessboard -- and smashed them when he deemed it necessary. He threatened to revoke the liquor license of a bar owner who hired one of his political enemies, and he organized advertising boycotts of critical publications.
One of the Democrats he pressured, Walter Baring, served 10 House terms. Like McCarran, Baring made it a point to know his constituents by first, middle and last name. Like McCarran, Baring could be fanatically anti-communist and disloyal to his party. Unlike McCarran, Baring never produced significant legislation.
After Baring blocked the creation of the Great Basin National Park, Reid pushed it through, aiding eastern Nevada's economy, and cost himself the support of some in the mining and ranching communities, who nicknamed him "Sierra Harry" for his trouble. Reid has delivered millions in research money to the state's university system and millions for road improvements. He has also obtained funding for Nevada test-site research while fighting federal funding of efforts to locate a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
As McCarran did, Reid understands the need to win federal help while keeping the government out of Nevada's business. And, as McCarran did, he has involved himself in state and local politics, anointing and blocking candidates, with limited success. Reid has said he plans to avoid future kingmaking. McCarran understood the need to take care of the home folks, but not that sometimes they need to be left alone. Reid has learned both lessons.
Reid survived scrutiny from a Los Angeles Times article that purported to show that he voted for gaming and mining interests because his sons worked for a law firm that represented those industries. That's true of every other successful Nevada politician. Reid understands the same about his colleagues because he understands his state's past.
To know Harry Reid, you need to know the U.S. Senate. Recent reports have mentioned that Reid isn't the greatest public speaker, but even his counterparts across the aisle like and respect him. That he epitomizes the Senate's best traditions helps explain Reid's success.
When McCarran's political protégé, Alan Bible, arrived in the Senate, Carl Hayden, a longtime senator from Arizona, told him there are two kinds of senators: a workhorse who does the job and a show horse who gets the attention. Bible was a workhorse, and it paid off. He gained seniority on the Appropriations and Interior committees and continued McCarran's tradition of delivering for his state, obtaining federal funding for water projects that contributed enormously to Nevada's growth.
Bible served with two Senate Democratic leaders. One, Lyndon Johnson, whom Bible worshipped, used everything from cajolery to blackmail to keep his caucus in line, and did it brilliantly -- especially with fellow presidential hopefuls like John Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Stuart Symington and Eugene McCarthy. Johnson's successor in that post, Montana's Mike Mansfield, was quiet and largely stayed behind the scenes.
Since entering the Senate, Reid has worked with several Democratic leaders, and he knows how to operate in the institution. In 1995, when Republicans sought a balanced-budget amendment, Reid dreamed up the rider that gave Democrats the ability to defeat it: making Social Security off-limits to budget cutters. As minority leader Reid is unlikely to emulate other Democratic senators who have run for the presidency or are thinking about it, and who are better known and better speakers. Reid's models are more likely to resemble Bible and Mansfield -- quiet, effective partisans who won respect and affection from all, even when they were being tough. Reid will be on the talk shows, but so will party stars like John Kerry, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and war horses like Patrick Leahy and Carl Levin. Chances are Reid will have a hand in figuring out where they should go and what they should say.
To know Harry Reid, you need to know the Mormon Church. Reid's family wasn't religious, but while he was in college, Reid and his wife (who was raised Jewish) joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then, as now, the Mormon Church is a power in Nevada politics; the church's conservatism is no secret.
That has sometimes vexed Reid. Although he is anti-choice on abortion, he abides by his party's position and has often has stated that he doesn't believe he has the right to legislate his personal views. He wasn't the only Democrat to vote for the ban on "partial birth" abortions, but he was among the few who voted to keep the law banning overseas military facilities from performing abortions. Yet he also joined 57 other senators, including four fellow Mormons, in urging Bush to expand embryonic stem-cell research -- a matter on which the Mormon Church has yet to take an official position.
Reid has reason to be cautious on choice. In 1990, a statewide ballot question asked Nevadans their opinion about choice, which they supported by a 63-37 margin. But the state's population has nearly doubled since then, and a significant percentage of the new arrivals are seniors, who tend to be social conservatives. The vote would probably be closer today.
Being Mormon has also undeniably helped Reid as well. In 1998, he faced what his onetime Senate colleague from Nevada, Richard Bryan, called "a near-death experience." In seeking his third term, Reid ran against John Ensign, who had just spent two terms in the House. (Two years later Ensign succeeded Bryan upon the latter's retirement from the Senate.)
Ensign almost succeeded Reid, who beat him by 428 votes. Reid's campaign apparently didn't awaken Nevadans to his strength as a veteran senator positioned to help his state. (South Dakotans didn't get that, either.) He certainly benefited when some Mormons normally inclined to vote for a conservative Republican like Ensign stayed with Reid. Today, Reid and Ensign have a close working relationship, despite their party differences.
Reid's membership in a conservative church could be critical to his performance as minority leader. Just as he has tried to balance the sometimes conflicting needs of rural and urban Nevada, so he will try to find a way to balance the agendas of politics and religion. And who better to deflect the inevitable Republican attacks on Democratic values than a soft-spoken follower of a church that opposes the consumption of alcohol and tobacco -- and works so closely with his Christian Republican colleagues?
Mormonism also played a factor in Reid's education. He went to Southern Utah State College (now Southern Utah University), then majored in history and political science at Utah State. There he studied with Leonard Arrington, who spent a decade as the Mormon Church's historian, trying to balance the church's demands and the scholarly record. Arrington wrote that "a follower like me, trying to do a job under conflicting instructions or pressures, was like a mouse crossing the floor where elephants are dancing."
Today, the elephants are dancing in the Senate -- and in the House, the Supreme Court, most statehouses and the White House. Democrats received plenty of votes in the 2004 election, but the party needs to rebuild. Although Reid is not in the party symbolized by the elephant, he resembles a real elephant in his long memory, including knowledge of his state and his institution.
Grant Sawyer, a liberal two-term governor of Nevada, longtime Democratic national committeeman and sometime Reid opponent in local party disputes, was asked about Reid after he finished his first Senate term. Sawyer said then, "It would be a big mistake to underestimate Harry Reid." That statement remains true today.
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About the writerMichael Green is a professor of history at the Community College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas. Sound OffSend us a Letter to the Editor
- - - - - - - - - - - -By Michael Green
Nov. 17, 2004 If you know Washington politics, you've heard of Harry Reid, elected Tuesday to replace the defeated Tom Daschle as Senate minority leader. If you don't know Washington politics, you are about to learn much more about him.
The Nevada Democrat won his fourth Senate term on Nov. 2 with more than 60 percent of the vote -- his largest margin in a statewide race in a 40-year political career. And after his party lost four Senate seats in the same race, he was well positioned to become the Senate's most powerful Democrat.
Reid entered the Senate in 1987 with South Dakota's Daschle. They were similar: moderates from conservative states, low-key, hardworking, partisan but able to work well on both sides of the aisle. As Daschle moved up, so did Reid. After winning a third term in 1998, Reid became Daschle's whip, or assistant leader, running floor operations.
But when Daschle became the first Senate party leader in more than 50 years to lose his reelection bid, Reid promptly spoke to his friend and soon-to-be ex-colleague, then began rounding up votes. The way was clear for Reid to become the leader of the Senate opposition to George W. Bush.
Predicting Reid's effectiveness, especially as compared with Daschle's, is somewhat difficult. Daschle managed to appear obstructionist enough to inspire Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to end a long-standing gentlemen's agreement among members of the congressional leadership not to campaign against each other. By contrast, Mitch McConnell, Reid's Republican counterpart as whip, whom no one has accused of hiding his partisanship, is one of those praising Reid, personally and professionally.
The Democratic caucus's loss of some of its more conservative members (Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia) will certainly shape the role Reid ends up playing. The 44 remaining Senate Democrats (plus independent Jim Jeffords) may seem like a slightly more liberal group, but they have certainly heard the discussion of the role that "moral values" played during the campaign. As a moderate -- and a more conservative one than Daschle -- in a rebuilding party, Reid might carry more weight with his colleagues than his predecessor did as a barometer on the issues. In particular, as a pro-life Mormon, he will provide a counterweight when Republicans beat the abortion drum. NARAL rates him as pro-life, having voted for choice only 29 percent of the time, compared with Daschle's 50 percent.
As for Bush's inevitable nominees to the Supreme Court, Reid is shrewd and partisan enough to know when to fight and when to go along. Despite his leanings on abortion, he was among the 48 Democrats who opposed the confirmation of Clarence Thomas -- nominated by a more moderate President Bush.
As Reid becomes a more familiar presence on television and in print, Americans, Democratic and Republican alike, will find out a lot more about him. And they're likely to be pleased. In the meantime, here's some of his history.
To know Harry Reid, you need to know Searchlight. Searchlight is a stop on the highway between Las Vegas and Laughlin. Its residents mostly live in trailers and congregate at a casino. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was a successful mining camp and has occasionally revived.
Inez and Harry Reid lived in a shack in Searchlight and had four boys. The youngest, Harry, was born on Dec. 2, 1939. One of his lingering memories is of his mother picking tiny rocks out of his father's back after a long day in the mines. He often joined his father underground. "I never did any drilling, but I ran the hoist on a lot of occasions, and I did a lot of mucking," he later said.
His parents had it tough. His father committed suicide, a victim of ill health, alcohol and depression. His mother lost all of her teeth, Reid recently told a group dedicating the new dental school at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and one of his first acts when he had enough money from practicing law was to buy his mother a set of dentures.
To continue his education beyond junior high school, Reid had to leave Searchlight. "Even though I began to spend less and less time in my hometown, my thoughts often returned to the days of my youth. Most of all, I realized how much I loved the desert," he wrote in "Searchlight: The Camp That Didn't Fail," a scholarly history of the town he published with the University of Nevada Press.
Now he has returned. He built a home on a hill overlooking Searchlight. His political action committee is called the Searchlight Leadership Fund, and he keeps a Searchlight map in his Senate office.
Reid knows the importance of a balancing act. He was born in a "red" portion of the state, the old Nevada of miners and ranchers, but his votes come from the "blue" parts, the new Nevada in which gaming dominates. Reid tries to represent all of these interests, yet rarely receives much support outside Las Vegas and Reno. Still, their votes are enough to have elected him four times to the Senate.
In both gaming and mining, corporations and their workers want to be left alone, but the feelings of miners and ranchers in rural Nevada may be stronger: Some federal employees with the Bureau of Land Management have even claimed to fear for their lives. Rural Nevadans tend not to be culturally conservative so much as libertarian.
Reid gets fewer of their votes, but he knows them and their thinking, thanks to his many campaigns and his ties to Searchlight. One of his old teachers sees another effect of his beginnings on him: "I think, now, that it must have been the spirit of the mines in Searchlight, something raw and untamed and confident. He had no fear."
To know Harry Reid, you need to know that teacher, Mike O'Callaghan. In 1956, O'Callaghan went to Henderson, Nev., then a small industrial town and now one of the nation's fastest-growing cities, to teach social studies at Basic High School. He also coached boxing at the local boys' club.
Since entering high school, Reid had stayed with Henderson families during the week and hitchhiked back and forth to Searchlight on weekends. In Henderson he met Landra Gould, who was a year behind him in school, and later married her. He also won his first major office as student body president, and became a boxer.
Reid's parents had imbued him with a strong work ethic, and O'Callaghan added to it -- and not just in class. As a boxing coach, O'Callaghan used to send the boys jogging up the steep grade to Railroad Pass, en route from Henderson to Boulder City. O'Callaghan followed in his new Buick and made clear to the boys that if they stopped or fell, he didn't plan to use his brakes. They didn't stop or fall.
After Reid graduated, O'Callaghan helped him get a scholarship to college, then a patronage job as a Capitol Hill policeman so he could afford law school. And he lent Reid the money he needed to take the Nevada bar exam, which he passed before finishing law school.
O'Callaghan left teaching to hold numerous state and federal administrative jobs, then ran for governor in 1970, with Reid as his running mate. O'Callaghan was the underdog against a better-financed, more prominent opponent. By then Reid had spent one term in Nevada's Assembly, where he introduced a slew of bills, including the first bill in Nevada to try to do something about air pollution.
Reid was O'Callaghan's lieutenant only for the first of his two terms. Amid oil crises, inflation and unemployment, they expanded government services without raising taxes. "There has never been a governor and lieutenant governor that worked more closely than we did," Reid said later. "There was never a meeting he didn't invite me to."
In 1974, Reid ran for an open Senate seat against former Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt. He ran a poor campaign and lost by 611 votes -- to a Republican in the first congressional election after Richard Nixon's resignation. The next year, trying to keep his name before the public, Reid ran for mayor of Las Vegas and lost. Before his 36th birthday, Reid appeared to be a political has-been.
But O'Callaghan didn't give up on Reid, said longtime Nevada lawyer and political figure Ralph Denton. "Mike knew what Harry was, and he appointed him chairman of the Gaming Commission. The people who believed he was too young and weak, I think, soon ... came to the conclusion he was neither too young nor too weak. He's a strong man."
In the late 1970s, federal and state investigations revealed the involvement of organized crime at several Strip hotels that were supposed to be clean. Crime families in Kansas City, Mo., pulled the strings at the Tropicana, where mob representative Joe Agosto claimed influence with state officials. "I got a clean face in my pocket," he said. The reference was clear. Reid, then as now, looked boyish and light-skinned. Reid responded by calling him a hoodlum and said, "Someday, he will get what he deserves." Agosto later testified for the federal government against the mob. State officials investigated and cleared Reid, and the FBI took the unusual step of announcing that it had no evidence to suggest Reid was tied to the mob. And the mob was displeased enough with him that Reid later found a bomb attached to a family car.
A year after declining an offer to continue as Gaming Commission chairman, Reid won the first of two terms in the House, then moved to the Senate. O'Callaghan never again ran for office. When he died in 2004, Reid delivered one of the eulogies. "If you were doing your best, it was good enough for Mike. If you were right and fighting for it, Mike was by your side. What more could someone ask for in a father figure than Mike O'Callaghan," Reid, not a publicly emotional person, said with tears in his eyes, his voice breaking.
To know Harry Reid, you need to know Nevada's political history. Sen. Pat McCarran served from 1933 to 1954 and held Washington in thrall in the late 1940s and early 1950s as chairman of the Judiciary Committee and its internal security subcommittee, where he hunted communists with as much single-mindedness as Javert seeking Jean Valjean.
But McCarran also held a senior position on the Appropriations Committee and used that power accordingly. Nevada received military bases, a magnesium plant, airport funding and numerous other pork-barrel projects through his efforts. He used his clout to block Sen. Estes Kefauver and his supporters from attacking the gaming industry.
Nor did McCarran hesitate to use that clout back home. He tried to maneuver other Democrats like pawns on a chessboard -- and smashed them when he deemed it necessary. He threatened to revoke the liquor license of a bar owner who hired one of his political enemies, and he organized advertising boycotts of critical publications.
One of the Democrats he pressured, Walter Baring, served 10 House terms. Like McCarran, Baring made it a point to know his constituents by first, middle and last name. Like McCarran, Baring could be fanatically anti-communist and disloyal to his party. Unlike McCarran, Baring never produced significant legislation.
After Baring blocked the creation of the Great Basin National Park, Reid pushed it through, aiding eastern Nevada's economy, and cost himself the support of some in the mining and ranching communities, who nicknamed him "Sierra Harry" for his trouble. Reid has delivered millions in research money to the state's university system and millions for road improvements. He has also obtained funding for Nevada test-site research while fighting federal funding of efforts to locate a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
As McCarran did, Reid understands the need to win federal help while keeping the government out of Nevada's business. And, as McCarran did, he has involved himself in state and local politics, anointing and blocking candidates, with limited success. Reid has said he plans to avoid future kingmaking. McCarran understood the need to take care of the home folks, but not that sometimes they need to be left alone. Reid has learned both lessons.
Reid survived scrutiny from a Los Angeles Times article that purported to show that he voted for gaming and mining interests because his sons worked for a law firm that represented those industries. That's true of every other successful Nevada politician. Reid understands the same about his colleagues because he understands his state's past.
To know Harry Reid, you need to know the U.S. Senate. Recent reports have mentioned that Reid isn't the greatest public speaker, but even his counterparts across the aisle like and respect him. That he epitomizes the Senate's best traditions helps explain Reid's success.
When McCarran's political protégé, Alan Bible, arrived in the Senate, Carl Hayden, a longtime senator from Arizona, told him there are two kinds of senators: a workhorse who does the job and a show horse who gets the attention. Bible was a workhorse, and it paid off. He gained seniority on the Appropriations and Interior committees and continued McCarran's tradition of delivering for his state, obtaining federal funding for water projects that contributed enormously to Nevada's growth.
Bible served with two Senate Democratic leaders. One, Lyndon Johnson, whom Bible worshipped, used everything from cajolery to blackmail to keep his caucus in line, and did it brilliantly -- especially with fellow presidential hopefuls like John Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey, Stuart Symington and Eugene McCarthy. Johnson's successor in that post, Montana's Mike Mansfield, was quiet and largely stayed behind the scenes.
Since entering the Senate, Reid has worked with several Democratic leaders, and he knows how to operate in the institution. In 1995, when Republicans sought a balanced-budget amendment, Reid dreamed up the rider that gave Democrats the ability to defeat it: making Social Security off-limits to budget cutters. As minority leader Reid is unlikely to emulate other Democratic senators who have run for the presidency or are thinking about it, and who are better known and better speakers. Reid's models are more likely to resemble Bible and Mansfield -- quiet, effective partisans who won respect and affection from all, even when they were being tough. Reid will be on the talk shows, but so will party stars like John Kerry, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and war horses like Patrick Leahy and Carl Levin. Chances are Reid will have a hand in figuring out where they should go and what they should say.
To know Harry Reid, you need to know the Mormon Church. Reid's family wasn't religious, but while he was in college, Reid and his wife (who was raised Jewish) joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then, as now, the Mormon Church is a power in Nevada politics; the church's conservatism is no secret.
That has sometimes vexed Reid. Although he is anti-choice on abortion, he abides by his party's position and has often has stated that he doesn't believe he has the right to legislate his personal views. He wasn't the only Democrat to vote for the ban on "partial birth" abortions, but he was among the few who voted to keep the law banning overseas military facilities from performing abortions. Yet he also joined 57 other senators, including four fellow Mormons, in urging Bush to expand embryonic stem-cell research -- a matter on which the Mormon Church has yet to take an official position.
Reid has reason to be cautious on choice. In 1990, a statewide ballot question asked Nevadans their opinion about choice, which they supported by a 63-37 margin. But the state's population has nearly doubled since then, and a significant percentage of the new arrivals are seniors, who tend to be social conservatives. The vote would probably be closer today.
Being Mormon has also undeniably helped Reid as well. In 1998, he faced what his onetime Senate colleague from Nevada, Richard Bryan, called "a near-death experience." In seeking his third term, Reid ran against John Ensign, who had just spent two terms in the House. (Two years later Ensign succeeded Bryan upon the latter's retirement from the Senate.)
Ensign almost succeeded Reid, who beat him by 428 votes. Reid's campaign apparently didn't awaken Nevadans to his strength as a veteran senator positioned to help his state. (South Dakotans didn't get that, either.) He certainly benefited when some Mormons normally inclined to vote for a conservative Republican like Ensign stayed with Reid. Today, Reid and Ensign have a close working relationship, despite their party differences.
Reid's membership in a conservative church could be critical to his performance as minority leader. Just as he has tried to balance the sometimes conflicting needs of rural and urban Nevada, so he will try to find a way to balance the agendas of politics and religion. And who better to deflect the inevitable Republican attacks on Democratic values than a soft-spoken follower of a church that opposes the consumption of alcohol and tobacco -- and works so closely with his Christian Republican colleagues?
Mormonism also played a factor in Reid's education. He went to Southern Utah State College (now Southern Utah University), then majored in history and political science at Utah State. There he studied with Leonard Arrington, who spent a decade as the Mormon Church's historian, trying to balance the church's demands and the scholarly record. Arrington wrote that "a follower like me, trying to do a job under conflicting instructions or pressures, was like a mouse crossing the floor where elephants are dancing."
Today, the elephants are dancing in the Senate -- and in the House, the Supreme Court, most statehouses and the White House. Democrats received plenty of votes in the 2004 election, but the party needs to rebuild. Although Reid is not in the party symbolized by the elephant, he resembles a real elephant in his long memory, including knowledge of his state and his institution.
Grant Sawyer, a liberal two-term governor of Nevada, longtime Democratic national committeeman and sometime Reid opponent in local party disputes, was asked about Reid after he finished his first Senate term. Sawyer said then, "It would be a big mistake to underestimate Harry Reid." That statement remains true today.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writerMichael Green is a professor of history at the Community College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas. Sound OffSend us a Letter to the Editor
By Mark Follman
Nov. 17, 2004 Some are calling it the great Cabinet shake-up; others are trying not to yawn. But most conservatives seem to agree on one point: President Bush is making all the right moves.
The mixed eulogies for Colin Powell this week, alongside near-unanimous praise for Condoleezza Rice's appointment as secretary of state, have stuck to a theme quite popular on the political right these days: In troubled times, it's best to do away with dissent.
"Powell is one of the great public servants of our time, a man who served his country in war and peace with extraordinary honor as a soldier and a statesman," wrote John Podhoretz in the New York Post, adding that while "many conservatives are privately cheering Powell's departure," their harsh judgments of his character and record are "remarkably unjust."
Even so, Podhoretz served up some pretty stiff criticism himself for the departing secretary of state.
"Powell is supremely competent and effective. But he is not imaginative, and it's not surprising that his constant expressions of caution did not hold sway during the first Bush term. Caution is not a foreign policy...
"The administration has had plenty of visionaries. Powell played a different role. It was the role that actually suited him best. The great irony is this: He would have been a terrible failure as secretary of state if the president had listened to him more."
Retiring New York Times columnist William Safire took the occasion to do some chin-scratching over Powell's choice of language.
"Lord knows I have tried, over the years, to keep Colin Powell on the grammatical strait and narrow. And yet, announcing his resignation, the departing secretary of state said that after the president and he had 'fulsome discussions on it, we came to mutual agreement...'
"Fulsome means 'offensively excessive,' and when two people agree, it's always mutual. This otherwise good man is incorrigible."
Safire offered a few words of praise, too:
"I came to admire some of his actions at State -- especially the way he spun Pakistan's prime minister around on a dime after 9/11, which helped us defeat the Taliban."
And some thoughts on a tell-all perhaps to come from the dissenting soldier:
"I apologize for having quoted colleagues of Colin's deputy, Richard Armitage, as saying he was 'better neckless than feckless.' Armitage is leaving, too, presumably to help Powell write his next best seller, 'The Secret Thoughts of Bob Woodward.'"
Hudson Institute fellow and New Republic senior editor Lawrence Kaplan says that Bush has made the right moves to shore up a fully faith-based community of White House lieutenants.
"President Bush, as evidenced by his remarks last week on democratizing the Middle East and pacifying Iraq, genuinely believes -- and, indeed, clings religiously to the belief -- that only the vigorous assertion of American power and ideals will make the world a better place. Chalk it up to his evangelical faith, his brainwashing at the hands of a sinister cabal, or his Manichean conception of the international scene: When it comes to the broad foreign policy questions of the day, Bush no longer needs advisers to tell him what to think. He needs them to translate his thinking into policy. For that to happen, Powell had to go."
Indeed, if trusting the president to handle all the big thinking is the best way to go, Kaplan says Rice is the ideal soldier.
"With Condoleezza Rice at the helm -- and, in all likelihood, with Undersecretary of State John Bolton as her deputy -- the State Department will now be run by a team known for its rigid loyalty to the president. They, more than any other administration officials, represent authentic expressions of Bush's foreign policy -- more realistic than the Bush team's neoconservatives but far more aggressive than its self-described 'realists.' Rice, to be sure, is neither a great thinker nor a great manager. But she is a great lieutenant -- that is, someone who can be relied on to convey and translate the president's inclinations into official policy."
Syndicated columnist and blogger James Lileks applauded the choice of Rice, whom he sees playing tougher in the Middle East. "The cabinet shakeup is interesting. Yay, Condi Rice. I want her to go to Saudi Arabia, and I want her first words upon getting off the plane to be 'I’ll drive.'"
InstaPundit's Glenn Reynolds sees "a lot of advantages" to the Rice move. "President Bush is obviously very comfortable with her and with her judgment, and she's undoubtedly up to speed on events. And they're used to working together in secrecy."
Et tu, Rummy?With Condi headed for State rather than the Pentagon, what are the chances that Donald Rumsfeld -- perhaps the most reviled by Bush's first-term critics -- will bow out? "My guess is that he won't," says Andrew Sullivan. "Now that Powell has gone, Rummy will see it as a matter of cojones that he stay for a while, if only to prevent sufficient manpower being deployed to win the war in Iraq, and to let memories of Abu Ghraib fade. (Sorry, Rummy, but mine won't.)" (Sullivan's memory of his disdain for Bush does seem to have faded, though; he once also held President Bush responsible for the disastrous handling of the war -- but now it appears Rumsfeld is solely to blame.)
Sullivan also says the Cabinet shake-up is no shake-up at all with regard to U.S. foreign policy. But he does see a wily kind of affirmative action on Bush's part -- a change in window dressing that will have a longer-term strategic payoff.
"So: no change with the appearance of real change. In fact, the likelihood of any new tack in foreign affairs just collapsed. But the real genius of the Rice appointment is domestic. She will become the second most powerful African-American woman in America. [The first being, he clarified in a later post, Oprah.] And she will become that as a Republican icon. That has to have an impact on the way at least a small minority of black voters will view Bush (and not a few other minority voters). Add in Clarence Thomas as Supreme Court Chief Justice, and you have a diversity record in top appointments that puts every previous Democrat to shame. That's partly what Bush is doing. He won't admit it, of course. But then it only works if he doesn't."
National Review editor Rich Lowry also has a few deliberations to share on the future of America's black vote.
"2004 might turn out to be the year when blacks began their journey in the liberal imagination from perpetual victims of bigotry to 'bigots' themselves. The Left has always forgiven the black community a lot -- its religiosity, with which Jerry Falwell could feel comfortable; its retrograde views on abortion and school prayer; its hostility to gay rights. But now blacks just might have gone too far: They've started to vote Republican.
"A pre-election survey by the well-respected Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies had President Bush's support among black voters going from 9 percent in 2000 to 18 percent in 2004. In that survey, Bush's support among black self-described evangelicals hit a stunning 36 percent. 'We haven't seen a number like 36 percent anywhere in the black community in a generation,' says conservative activist Richard Nadler, who has made it his business to win blacks to the GOP through targeted advertising and outreach."
Lowry notes that those numbers in fact fell off quite a bit in the actual Election Day results. But now that blacks are freed from the yoke of history, he says, they'll be able to wear their true social conservatism with pride.
"For understandable historical reasons, blacks have long kept their social conservatism separate from politics, voting for liberal Democrats. If a significant number of blacks now join their fellow moral traditionalists in Red America in voting for the GOP, they will experience the sort of elite scorn heaped on all other opponents of social liberalism. Blacks will be the new 'bigots.' Their consolation will be having a seat at the table of the nation's new majority party."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Read more of "Right Hook," Salon's weekly roundup of conservative commentary and analysis here.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writerMark Follman is an associate news editor at Salon. Sound OffSend us a Letter to the Editor
Nov. 17, 2004 Some are calling it the great Cabinet shake-up; others are trying not to yawn. But most conservatives seem to agree on one point: President Bush is making all the right moves.
The mixed eulogies for Colin Powell this week, alongside near-unanimous praise for Condoleezza Rice's appointment as secretary of state, have stuck to a theme quite popular on the political right these days: In troubled times, it's best to do away with dissent.
"Powell is one of the great public servants of our time, a man who served his country in war and peace with extraordinary honor as a soldier and a statesman," wrote John Podhoretz in the New York Post, adding that while "many conservatives are privately cheering Powell's departure," their harsh judgments of his character and record are "remarkably unjust."
Even so, Podhoretz served up some pretty stiff criticism himself for the departing secretary of state.
"Powell is supremely competent and effective. But he is not imaginative, and it's not surprising that his constant expressions of caution did not hold sway during the first Bush term. Caution is not a foreign policy...
"The administration has had plenty of visionaries. Powell played a different role. It was the role that actually suited him best. The great irony is this: He would have been a terrible failure as secretary of state if the president had listened to him more."
Retiring New York Times columnist William Safire took the occasion to do some chin-scratching over Powell's choice of language.
"Lord knows I have tried, over the years, to keep Colin Powell on the grammatical strait and narrow. And yet, announcing his resignation, the departing secretary of state said that after the president and he had 'fulsome discussions on it, we came to mutual agreement...'
"Fulsome means 'offensively excessive,' and when two people agree, it's always mutual. This otherwise good man is incorrigible."
Safire offered a few words of praise, too:
"I came to admire some of his actions at State -- especially the way he spun Pakistan's prime minister around on a dime after 9/11, which helped us defeat the Taliban."
And some thoughts on a tell-all perhaps to come from the dissenting soldier:
"I apologize for having quoted colleagues of Colin's deputy, Richard Armitage, as saying he was 'better neckless than feckless.' Armitage is leaving, too, presumably to help Powell write his next best seller, 'The Secret Thoughts of Bob Woodward.'"
Hudson Institute fellow and New Republic senior editor Lawrence Kaplan says that Bush has made the right moves to shore up a fully faith-based community of White House lieutenants.
"President Bush, as evidenced by his remarks last week on democratizing the Middle East and pacifying Iraq, genuinely believes -- and, indeed, clings religiously to the belief -- that only the vigorous assertion of American power and ideals will make the world a better place. Chalk it up to his evangelical faith, his brainwashing at the hands of a sinister cabal, or his Manichean conception of the international scene: When it comes to the broad foreign policy questions of the day, Bush no longer needs advisers to tell him what to think. He needs them to translate his thinking into policy. For that to happen, Powell had to go."
Indeed, if trusting the president to handle all the big thinking is the best way to go, Kaplan says Rice is the ideal soldier.
"With Condoleezza Rice at the helm -- and, in all likelihood, with Undersecretary of State John Bolton as her deputy -- the State Department will now be run by a team known for its rigid loyalty to the president. They, more than any other administration officials, represent authentic expressions of Bush's foreign policy -- more realistic than the Bush team's neoconservatives but far more aggressive than its self-described 'realists.' Rice, to be sure, is neither a great thinker nor a great manager. But she is a great lieutenant -- that is, someone who can be relied on to convey and translate the president's inclinations into official policy."
Syndicated columnist and blogger James Lileks applauded the choice of Rice, whom he sees playing tougher in the Middle East. "The cabinet shakeup is interesting. Yay, Condi Rice. I want her to go to Saudi Arabia, and I want her first words upon getting off the plane to be 'I’ll drive.'"
InstaPundit's Glenn Reynolds sees "a lot of advantages" to the Rice move. "President Bush is obviously very comfortable with her and with her judgment, and she's undoubtedly up to speed on events. And they're used to working together in secrecy."
Et tu, Rummy?With Condi headed for State rather than the Pentagon, what are the chances that Donald Rumsfeld -- perhaps the most reviled by Bush's first-term critics -- will bow out? "My guess is that he won't," says Andrew Sullivan. "Now that Powell has gone, Rummy will see it as a matter of cojones that he stay for a while, if only to prevent sufficient manpower being deployed to win the war in Iraq, and to let memories of Abu Ghraib fade. (Sorry, Rummy, but mine won't.)" (Sullivan's memory of his disdain for Bush does seem to have faded, though; he once also held President Bush responsible for the disastrous handling of the war -- but now it appears Rumsfeld is solely to blame.)
Sullivan also says the Cabinet shake-up is no shake-up at all with regard to U.S. foreign policy. But he does see a wily kind of affirmative action on Bush's part -- a change in window dressing that will have a longer-term strategic payoff.
"So: no change with the appearance of real change. In fact, the likelihood of any new tack in foreign affairs just collapsed. But the real genius of the Rice appointment is domestic. She will become the second most powerful African-American woman in America. [The first being, he clarified in a later post, Oprah.] And she will become that as a Republican icon. That has to have an impact on the way at least a small minority of black voters will view Bush (and not a few other minority voters). Add in Clarence Thomas as Supreme Court Chief Justice, and you have a diversity record in top appointments that puts every previous Democrat to shame. That's partly what Bush is doing. He won't admit it, of course. But then it only works if he doesn't."
National Review editor Rich Lowry also has a few deliberations to share on the future of America's black vote.
"2004 might turn out to be the year when blacks began their journey in the liberal imagination from perpetual victims of bigotry to 'bigots' themselves. The Left has always forgiven the black community a lot -- its religiosity, with which Jerry Falwell could feel comfortable; its retrograde views on abortion and school prayer; its hostility to gay rights. But now blacks just might have gone too far: They've started to vote Republican.
"A pre-election survey by the well-respected Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies had President Bush's support among black voters going from 9 percent in 2000 to 18 percent in 2004. In that survey, Bush's support among black self-described evangelicals hit a stunning 36 percent. 'We haven't seen a number like 36 percent anywhere in the black community in a generation,' says conservative activist Richard Nadler, who has made it his business to win blacks to the GOP through targeted advertising and outreach."
Lowry notes that those numbers in fact fell off quite a bit in the actual Election Day results. But now that blacks are freed from the yoke of history, he says, they'll be able to wear their true social conservatism with pride.
"For understandable historical reasons, blacks have long kept their social conservatism separate from politics, voting for liberal Democrats. If a significant number of blacks now join their fellow moral traditionalists in Red America in voting for the GOP, they will experience the sort of elite scorn heaped on all other opponents of social liberalism. Blacks will be the new 'bigots.' Their consolation will be having a seat at the table of the nation's new majority party."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Read more of "Right Hook," Salon's weekly roundup of conservative commentary and analysis here.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writerMark Follman is an associate news editor at Salon. Sound OffSend us a Letter to the Editor
News Home - Help
US Pounds Falluja Diehards, Violence in North
33 minutes ago
By Michael Georgy and Fadel al-Badrani
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. artillery pummeled Falluja on Wednesday and troops hunted guerrillas still fighting days after Washington said its offensive had destroyed rebel control of the Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad.
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Further north, where violence has surged since the U.S. assault on Falluja began last Monday, 15 Iraqis were killed and 22 wounded in the oil refining town of Baiji. A suicide car bomber rammed a U.S. convoy, prompting troops to open fire.
U.S. officers in Falluja said Marines were "cleaning up" Iraqi and foreign Islamists and Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) loyalists, and Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim government said some 1,600 rebels lay dead.
Mortar fire and heavy explosive rounds crashed on areas where insurgents were believed still to be holding out.
There was trouble in the heartlands of the formerly dominant Sunni Muslim minority, where some fear an election due in January will hand national power to the Shi'ite majority.
After the bombing in Baiji, U.S. troops fought insurgents and sealed off the oil refinery to protect it.
Witnesses said the bomb, which blew up in a market area near the city center, damaged a U.S. armored vehicle and wounded some soldiers, prompting them to open fire.
A U.S. military spokesman confirmed that a suicide bomber drove into a U.S. convoy but had no information on casualties.
In Ramadi, just west of Falluja, nine Iraqis were killed and 15 wounded when U.S. forces confronted large groups of rocket- and mortar-firing gunmen who fanned out through the streets, hospital officials and witnesses said.
Iraq's third city Mosul, another Sunni stronghold in the north, was quiet after days of clashes. But the road north from Baghdad remained dangerous and three Turkish truck drivers were killed in two ambushes, police said.
Iraq's fledgling security forces, set up under U.S. control to replace Saddam's discredited authorities, were targeted again. But for once, a group of unarmed police recruits was able to outwit guerrillas who have killed dozens of their comrades.
Held up by gunmen at a hotel in Rutba on their way home from training in Jordan, 35 recruits from the southern, Shi'ite city of Kerbala hid their police papers pretending to be businessmen, Kerbala's police chief said. After three hours, the gunmen left.
A NATO (news - web sites) official said on Wednesday the organization approved a detailed plan under which it will train some 1,000 Iraqi army officers a year at a proposed military academy outside Baghdad.
INSURGENT LEADERSHIP
Washington has said senior militants, including Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, probably escaped Falluja before it was attacked.
It is not clear how widely coordinated insurgent activity is, so it is hard to assess whether violence in other Sunni towns has been led by figures formerly based in Falluja or is simply a reaction to events there.
An Iraqi freelance journalist working for al Arabiya television and the Associated Press has been detained by U.S. troops in Falluja since last week, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said on Wednesday. The U.S. military said it was not aware of any such detention.
More widely, the bloodshed in Falluja, including the alleged shooting dead of an unarmed, wounded guerrilla in a mosque by a U.S. Marine has provoked dismay among many in Iraq and the Arab world, where President Bush (news - web sites) hoped Saddam's overthrow would foster stability.
One of the most prominent critics of last year's U.S.-led invasion spoke out again on Wednesday:
"I'm not at all sure that one can say the world is safer," said French President Jacques Chirac on the eve of a visit to Bush's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites).
Britain on Wednesday rejected an estimate by U.S. researchers that some 100,000 Iraqi civilians may have died as a result of the war, agreeing with an Iraqi government figure of a much smaller body count.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the estimate, in a report published late last month by British medical journal The Lancet, was based on imprecise data. London supports an estimate from Iraq's Ministry of Health that 3,853 civilians were killed and 15,517 injured between April and October this year, Straw said in a statement. Those figures may include insurgents.
The family of a kidnapped British aid worker, who said on Tuesday she was probably dead, were seeking the return of her body after a video seemed to show her being shot in the head.
It has never been clear who seized Margaret Hassan in Baghdad a month ago nor where she was being held.
(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed in Baghdad and Sabah al-Bazee in Baiji)
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