Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 379

BAGHDAD - Hundreds of thousands of frenzied Shiites beat their heads and chests in unison and whipped themselves with chains Saturday across Iraq to honor the martyrdom of one of their most revered saints. The processions were marred by violence with a deadly bombing in northern Iraq and clashes south of Baghdad.

The street battles between members of a messianic cult and Iraqi troops raged for a second day as the death toll from the fighting in two predominantly Shiite southern cities rose from 50 to at least 68.

Iraqi authorities said at least 36 people were reported killed in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, and at least 32 in Nasiriyah, including Iraqi security forces, civilians and gunmen. At least 10 people were reported slain in Nasiriyah Friday.

Video footage broadcast on Iraqi state TV showed several dead or wounded men lying on bloodstained streets in Basra, where officials said the situation was under control. An Iraqi soldier held the yellow bandanna of one man, apparently signifying that he was a member of the Soldiers of Heaven cult.

Nine blindfolded detainees sat hunched over on a curb as men held a sign behind them that said "criminal investigation department in Basra."

There were conflicting accounts about how the clashes erupted, but all signs pointed to the radical Shiite group, which last year mounted a ferocious attack after Iraqi security forces raided its stronghold near the holy city of Najaf to foil an alleged plot to slaughter pilgrims and leading clerics during Ashoura.

















(AUSTIN, Texas) — Everything's big in Texas — big pickup trucks, big SUVs and the state's big carbon footprint, too.

Texans' fondness for large, manly vehicles has helped make the Lone Star State the biggest carbon polluter in the nation.

The headquarters state of America's oil industry spewed 670 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2003, enough that Texas would rank seventh in the world if it were its own country, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The amount is more than that of California and Pennsylvania — the second- and third-ranking states — combined.

A multitude of factors contribute to the carbon output, among them: Texas' 19 coal-burning power plants; a heavy concentration of refineries and chemical plants; a lack of mass transit; and a penchant among ranchers and urban cowboys alike for brawny, gas-guzzling trucks — sometimes to haul things, but often just to look Texas tough.

(AP) Seventy-nine injured soldiers were pressed into war duty last month as the U.S. Army struggled to fill its ranks, but most were assigned to light-duty jobs within limits set by doctors, two Army leaders said.

The Denver Post, quoting internal Army e-mails and a Fort Carson soldier, reported that troops had been deployed to Kuwait en route to Iraq while they were still receiving medical treatment for various conditions.

Fort Carson's top general Maj. Gen. Mark Graham said most of the 79 soldiers remain in Iraq, while about a dozen are in Kuwait, the newspaper reported in Friday editions. A few returned to the United States because of inadequate rehabilitation available in theater, Graham said.

Graham said he has asked Fort Carson's inspector general to investigate whether proper procedures were followed in sending the soldiers into war zones.

Congressional investigators also are reviewing allegations that medically unfit soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan to shore up lagging troop numbers.

"My personal opinion is, is that as the war goes on, you'll see more and more soldiers with (limitations)," Graham said.

Master Sgt. Denny Nelson was sent overseas last month for a third tour in the Middle East though doctor's orders said he should not run, jump or carry more than 20 pounds because of a serious foot injury, The Denver Post reported.

Nelson was sent back to the U.S. after a doctor in Kuwait told Fort Carson officials he should never have left the United States.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 378

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks tumbled for a fourth day on Friday to close out the worst week for the S&P 500 in five years on worry that a White House effort to boost the economy may not prevent a recession.

The U.S. stock market is off to its worst start to a year on record.

Financial firms absorbed the brunt of the selling, again, on worries over spreading subprime mortgage fallout, and were joined in the route by telecommunications companies after Sprint Nextel announced big subscriber losses and thousands of layoffs. Sprint fell 25 percent on the day.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was down 55.36 points, or 0.46 percent, at 12,103.85. The Standard & Poor's 500 index .SPX was down 7.48 points, or 0.56 percent, at 1,325.77. The Nasdaq Composite index was down 5.86 points, or 0.25 percent, at 2,341.04.

The largest operator of supervised boarding homes for the mentally ill in King County is closing two of its homes, blaming a lack of adequate funding from the county.

The action follows serious sanctions from the state against all six of the operator's boarding homes.

The closures mean 102 mentally ill residents of The Inn and the Summit Inn on Capitol Hill will be moved out within the next several months.

The operator, Community House Mental Health Agency, contracts with the state and county to house mentally ill people on Medicaid.

The nonprofit agency recently closed another of its homes in the Greenwood neighborhood, Brierwood, after the state revoked that facility's license for conditions that ranged from a mattress-strewn yard to dirty carpets, furniture, windows and walls and a basement bedroom with worm-infested dirt.

The two boarding homes to close are leased from Pete Sikov, who in a letter this week to city and county officials decried the loss of beds for the chronically mentally ill.

The decision to close the facilities "is not a surprise," said Amnon Shoenfeld, director of King County's Mental Health, Chemical Abuse and Dependency Services Division. "We don't have a lot of time to find alternatives."

All six boarding homes provide "supervised living," a category that requires round-the-clock staffing.

In recent months, the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has leveled a range of sanctions against Community House homes — including the license revocation — after finding various failures in the way the needs of residents are assessed and monitored and in the upkeep of the homes.

"This fall, we inspected all of them. We said, here's your road map. Fix them," said Joyce Stockwell, director of Residential Care Services, which is part of DSHS. "You tell us what you're doing to get there and stay there."

The two Capitol Hill homes will be closed because the lease is up soon and there aren't enough resources from the county "to provide the kind of care we want to deliver," said the group's lawyer, Carla DewBerry.

Brierwood, the Greenwood facility that's already closed, is being redeveloped as 23 units of low-income housing, hopefully for people with mental-health problems, she added.

Meanwhile, Community House has been reviewing the quality of its services and striving to improve, DewBerry said.

"They've already satisfied certain concerns" in the homes still open and are making other changes, she said. "Whatever happens they are going to provide high-quality care."

She insists some of the violations "are really just episodic" and don't represent a pattern.

Another Community House boarding home is Spring Manor on Capitol Hill, where a schizophrenic resident jumped to his death last October.

The suicide and poor conditions at Community House homes outraged the state's long-term-care ombudsman, Louise Ryan, who is an advocate for residents in long-term-care facilities.

At a news conference in November, Ryan called for Spring Manor's administrator to be investigated for criminal neglect. She also believes that until last year the state was doing a poor job of enforcing regulations governing these boarding homes.

Apparent gaps in White House e-mail archives coincide with dates in late 2003 and early 2004 when the administration was struggling to deal with the CIA leak investigation and the possibility of a congressional probe into Iraq intelligence failures.

The gaps — 473 days over a period of 20 months — are cited in a chart prepared by White House computer technicians and shared in September with the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee, which has been looking into reports of missing e-mail.

Among the times for which e-mail may not have been archived from Vice President Dick Cheney's office are four days in early October 2003, just as a federal probe was beginning into the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA identity, an inquiry that eventually ensnared Cheney's chief of staff.

Contents of the chart — which the White House now disputes — were disclosed Thursday by Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House committee, as he announced plans for a Feb. 15 hearing.

Waxman said he decided to release details from the White House-prepared chart after presidential spokesman Tony Fratto declared "we have absolutely no reason to believe that any e-mails are missing."

Among the periods of time for which the chart indicates e-mail is missing is a five-day span starting on Jan. 29, 2004, when the White House was dealing with the possibility of an election-year probe by Congress into Iraq intelligence failures.

Not archived by the office of the vice president is e-mail for Jan. 29-31, 2004, according to chart information released by Waxman. In addition, all e-mail from the White House Office in the Executive Office of the President was listed as missing for one of those days.

The chart indicates that e-mail also was not archived by the White House on the following Monday — Feb. 2, 2004 — the day President Bush took a big step in averting what could have been a politically troublesome congressional inquiry. He ordered an independent investigation into intelligence failures in Iraq.

The president conferred that day with former chief weapons inspector David Kay, declaring, "I want to know all the facts."

The commission named by Bush reached a harsh verdict about the U.S. intelligence community's performance, but the panel stopped short of addressing the White House's use of the intelligence data to support the idea of war with Iraq.

The White House says computer back-up tapes should contain substantially all e-mails between 2003 and 2005. However, the White House recycled backup tapes until sometime in October 2003, taping over existing data. That could mean some e-mail is gone forever if it is also missing from archives.

An example might be any missing e-mail from Cheney's office in the early days of the CIA leak probe. The White House has not said when in October 2003 it halted the recycling of backup tapes.

E-mails in early October 2003 could reveal key discussions between White House personnel in the week after the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the leak of Plame's CIA identity. The White House denied that Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby or top presidential adviser Karl Rove were involved in the leak, an assertion that turned out to be false.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 377

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The U.S. government will open up nearly 46,000 square miles (119,000 square km) off Alaska's northwest coast to petroleum leases next month, a decision condemned by environmental groups that contend northern marine mammals will be harmed.

The Minerals Management Agency planned the sale in the Chukchi Sea without taking into account changes in the Arctic brought on by global warming and proposed insufficient protections for polar bears, walrus, whales and other species that could be harmed by drilling rigs or spills, according to the groups.

The lease sale in an area slightly smaller than the state of Pennsylvania was planned without information as basic as the polar bear and walrus populations, said Pamela A. Miller, Arctic coordinator with Northern Alaska Environmental Center. The lease sale is among the largest acreage offered in the Alaska region.

"The Minerals Management Service is required to have preleasing baseline data sufficient to determine the post-leasing impacts of the oil and gas activities that will occur," Miller said. "They simply do not have that."

The MMS announced it would hold a lease sale February 6 in Anchorage for the ocean floor on the outer continental shelf of the Chukchi Sea. The body of water begins north of the Bering Strait and stretches between northwest Alaska and the northern coast of the Russian Far East.

The MMS is a branch of the Interior Department. Its stated mission is to manage ocean energy and mineral resources on the outer continental shelf and federal and Indian mineral revenues to enhance public and trust benefits, promote responsible use, and realize fair value.

It would be the first federal OCS oil and gas lease sale in the Chukchi Sea since 1991. The agency estimates it contains 15 billion barrels of conventionally recoverable oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of conventionally recoverable natural gas.

MMS director Randall Luthi said the agency took steps to protect wildlife.

"MMS funds a robust environmental studies program to monitor the effects of industry activity in the OCS, including more than 40 ongoing Arctic-specific studies," said Luthi. "Following up on a workshop attended by over 100 scientists and stakeholders, we are inaugurating a new suite of research for the Chukchi Sea to further monitor marine mammals, other communities, hydrocarbons, and subsistence uses."

The sale is backed by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and community and tribal leaders, he said.

"We believe our decision is a good balance and will allow companies to explore this intriguing frontier area while still protecting the resources important to the coastal residents," Luthi said.

Miller and Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity said the MMS ignored dangers to animals and birds if an oil spill were to occur.

"No one yet has figured out how to clean up a spill in broken ice, so they just stick their head in the sand and pretend it won't happen," Cummings said.

He also said the agency's environmental assessment ignored changes brought by global warming.

The Chukchi Sea, he said, is the nation's most important habitat for Pacific walrus. The lease sale assumes a stable walrus population, ignoring developments of 2007. Unlike seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely and must "haul out" on ice or land to rest. In late summer, thousands of animals hauled out on the northwest Alaska coast for several months because their usual platform for foraging -- sea ice -- receded far beyond the relatively shallow continental shelf over waters too deep for walrus to dive for food.

On the Russian side of the Chukchi Sea, biologists recorded herds gathering on shore instead of the pack ice, including one group of up to 40,000 animals at Point Shmidt, a spot that had not been used by walruses as a haulout for a century. Russian biologists estimate that 3,000 to 4,000 mostly young animals were crushed in stampedes when polar bears, hunters or low-flying aircraft startled walruses and sent them rushing to the safety of the sea.

"It doesn't address the reality that things are happening rapidly with walrus, and we need to be very, very careful in what we do," Cummings said of the lease plan.

The Chukchi Sea also is home to one of two U.S. polar bear populations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is days away from deciding whether polar bears should be declared threatened because of global warming and its effect on the animal's primary habitat, sea ice.

"The chances for the continued survival of this icon of the Arctic will be greatly diminished if its last remaining critical habitat is turned into a vast oil and gas field," said Margaret Williams, managing director of World Wildlife Fund's Kamchatka and Bering Sea Program.

Polar bears spend most of their lives on sea ice. They use sea ice to hunt their primary prey, ringed seals. In Alaska, females use sea ice to den or to reach denning areas on land.

Arctic sea ice last summer plummeted to the lowest levels since satellite measurements began in 1979, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado.

The sale area will not include nearshore waters ranging from about 25 to 50 miles from the coast, Luthi said. That nearshore buffer is used by bowhead and beluga whales, other marine mammals, and marine birds migrating north in the spring, Luthi said, as well as subsistence hunters from coastal villages.

Cummings said the agency used inadequate standards for assessing the effect of sound from exploration seismic and drilling activity. It also failed to take into account recent sightings of endangered fin and humpback whales in the Chukchi Sea, he said.

"The buffer may put activities out of sight from land but it certainly doesn't shield the land from an
oil spill," he said.









FUN WITH BLOOD!

Five American soldiers were killed Monday by a roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul, described as one of al-Qaida in Iraq's last strongholds, just days after a house explosion and suicide attack killed as many as 60 people there.

Insurgents in a nearby mosque opened fire on other soldiers in the patrol after the roadside bombing, prompting a fierce gunbattle as U.S. and Iraqi troops secured the area, the military said. Iraqi soldiers entered the mosque but the gunmen had already fled, according to the statement.

Iraqi army reinforcements have moved into position near the city, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, ahead of a planned offensive announced by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. ` Monday's deaths raised to at least 36 the number of American troop deaths reported this month, an increase from the 23 recorded in December in one of the lowest monthly totals since the war started in March 2003.

Iraqi police in Mosul, the capital of Ninevah province, reported clashes between U.S.-Iraqi forces and gunmen in a middle-class Sunni neighborhood believed to be an insurgent stronghold.

An officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said three civilians were wounded and helicopters had bombarded buildings in the southeastern Sumar neighborhood, which has seen frequent attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces that have led to a series of raids.

"The insurgents are willing to desecrate a place of worship by using it to attack soldiers to further their agenda," said Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, a U.S. military spokeswoman in northern Iraq.

U.S. commanders describe Mosul as the last major urban center with a significant al-Qaida presence since the terror network has been driven from its strongholds in the capital and Anbar province.

The U.S. military has said Iraqi security forces will take the lead in Mosul — a major test of Washington's plan to, at an undetermined date, shrink the American force and leave it as backup for Iraqi security forces.

The Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, meanwhile, gave a higher death toll than Iraqi officials from Wednesday's devastating house explosion. The U.S. military said the cause of the blast has yet to be determined, although Iraqi officials were quick to blame al-Qaida.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 377

THE SURGE IS WORKING

A suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a high school north of Baghdad on Tuesday, wounding 22 people including teachers and students arriving for the beginning of the school day…U.S. commanders credit anti-al-Qaida fighters from Sunni groups, a six-month cease-fire by a Shiite militia and the dispatch of 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers last year for the reduction in violence. But there has been an uptick in high-profile bombings in recent weeks, suggesting al-Qaida remains a potent threat.

* * *

On Monday, a suicide bomber apparently targeting a senior security official blew himself up inside a funeral tent, killing 18 people in Hajaj, a village about midway along the nearly 20 miles between Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit and the oil hub of Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad.

* * *

The attack comes one day after a 15-year-old suicide bomber walked into a party carrying a box of chocolates and detonated hidden explosives, killing himself, his cousin — a Sunni fighter working with U.S. and Iraqi forces — and four others.

* * *

Meanwhile, a military spokeswoman said a soldier killed over the weekend south of Baghdad was the first American casualty in a roadside bomb attack on the newly introduced, heavily armored MRAP, or Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicle.

E-mails from the White House, which watchdog groups alleged to be improperly deleted between 2003 and 2005, may exist on backup tapes, the White House chief information officer claims in court documents filed yesterday.

During the 2006 Valerie Plame incident, in which presidential aides were found to have leaked Plame's CIA identity to the media, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald disclosed that not all e-mail traffic at the White House and in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney was preserved properly during certain time periods in 2003. Such preservation is required under the Presidential Records Act.

The White House blamed the oversight on a technical glitch. In October 2007, the government watchdog groups National Security Archive and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, both based in Washington, filed lawsuits requesting that the courts order the White House to produce the e-mails -- estimated to total between 5 million to 10 million -- that were improperly deleted from White House computer servers.

On Jan. 8, 2008, a federal magistrate ordered the White House to reveal within five business days whether copies of the missing e-mails had been stored on computer backup tapes.

"At this stage, this office does not know if any e-mails were not properly preserved in the archiving process," said Theresa Payton, CIO of the Office of Administration in the Executive Office of the President. Her statement appeared in a declaration filed with the court in response to the Jan. 8 order.

"However, in view of this office's practice in the 2003-2005 time period of regularly creating backup tapes for the EOP network, which includes servers containing e-mails, and in view of this office's practice of preserving all such backup tapes from October 2003 to present, the backup tapes should contain substantially all the e-mails sent or received in the 2003-2005 time period."

The office is trying to determine if there may be anomalies in "e-mail counts for any particular days" during the time period in question, which would result in the potential failure to properly archive messages, Payton wrote.

An investigation is under way to determine whether the alleged missing e-mails resulted from the White House's failure to properly archive messages.











CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. -- Three Marines and an Afghan translator testified Wednesday that their convoy came under fire in Afghanistan after a car bomb attack in March, prompting return fire as the Marines tried to escape what they called the "kill zone." As many as 19 Afghans were reported killed.

The testimony came on the second day of a court of inquiry examining the incident. The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has accused the Marine Special Operations members of firing indiscriminately, killing civilian men, women and children.

Those who testified said they did not see gunmen or feel bullets strike their vehicles. But the Marines said they feared for their lives and fired back in accordance with military rules of engagement.

"I'm sure we had to kill some guys who were shooting at us, sir," said Sgt. Brett Hayes, who was in the second of six vehicles in the convoy outside Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.

The testimony contradicted statements made to the court Tuesday by a counterintelligence sergeant on the convoy, who described dead Afghan civilians and what he called "excessive" Marine fire.

The inquiry is a fact-finding body, not a criminal court. The tribunal's three Marine officers are investigating the actions of the unit and two of its commanders, Maj. Fred C. Galvin and Capt. Vincent J. Noble. The panel will report its findings to the commanding general of the Special Operations Command, who will decide whether to take action. No one has been charged in the March 4 incident.

An Army investigation concluded that 19 Afghan civilians died and 50 were wounded. Defense lawyers contend that the numbers are lower.

Testimony Wednesday focused on whether the Marines perceived that they were under enemy fire, rather than whom or what they shot.

Lawyers for Galvin and Noble elicited testimony that Marine gunners fired for a much shorter period of time and over a shorter distance than described in the human rights report. That report said the Marines fired for an extended period over 10 miles of highway.

Ask to describe the car bombing that preceded the Marines' gunfire, Hayes replied: "I thought I was dead. I thought there was no way I'd make it through this."

Another Marine, Sgt. Joshua Henderson, was slightly wounded in the attack. He was knocked from the turret by the explosion, Hayes said, but got back up on his M240 machine gun and began firing.

Hayes said he felt threatened by vehicles that continued to drive toward the convoy. He and the other two Marines said Henderson and another turret gunner, Sgt. Peter Brooks, adhered to "escalation of force" rules by first shooting warning shots into the pavement and then into vehicles' engine blocks.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 376

WASHINGTON — As the Bush administration and Congress try to craft an economic-stimulus plan, a cloud hangs over them: the federal deficit.

Iraq and Afghan war costs of $9.6 billion a month and a gaping federal deficit funded by borrowing from foreign governments limit how aggressively the U.S. government can cut taxes or boost spending to fend off a recession.

Just over the horizon, a fiscal crisis that some call a day of reckoning looms larger.

Statistics released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show that the federal deficit — the gap between what the government spends and the revenue it collects — is projected to leap to $250 billion in the current budget year. That's up 53 percent from the $163 billion deficit in fiscal 2007.

If Congress approves the roughly $150 billion economic-stimulus plan being discussed, the deficit for the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, could swell to almost $400 billion.

The CBO presented those estimates to Congress as part of its budget and economic outlook for 2008 to 2018.

"Ongoing increases in health-care costs, along with the aging of the population, are expected to put substantial pressure on the budget in coming decades," Director Peter Orszag told the House Budget Committee.

Lawmakers can sharply cut government spending, sharply raise taxes or pass some combination of the two, Orszag said.

The Bush administration frequently notes that although the deficit is high, it's low in historical terms as a percentage of the total economy: 1.5 percent this budget year, according to CBO estimates.

That's true. But in the context of what lies ahead, the deficit puts the economy on a weaker footing to address the fiscal challenges that successive Congresses have ducked.








BUT LETS CUT TAXES...

The U.S. military in Iraq has been extolling the achievements of its cooperation with civilians in the fight against extremists and insurgents. The mechanism of that cooperation, however, is greased by cash - and the budgetary spigot for it has been tightening in recent months.

That does not sit well for officers like Captain Joel Brown, in charge of Eagle company for the 2-2 Styker Cavalry Regiment. For him, money spent bankrolling the Sunni al-Sahwa ("Awakening") movement is money well spent. Al-Sahwa patrols neighborhoods in his area and effectively works as a local muscle, beating back insurgents and keeping the peace where local law enforcement has long since abandoned. When Brown's company arrived in southern Baghdad in August they found 50 roadside bombs in one day; they would sometime engage in two or three firefights daily. Now he pays nine Sunni contractors to manage 10 checkpoints with about 300 guards, in the process protecting schools, clinics and key intersections 24 hours a day. Soon there will be a total of 1,000 guards.

When these so-called "Concerned Citizens' League" (CLC) programs began, attacks against his men started decreasing. For Brown, the calculus is clear: "Every time we looe one of our guys it costs us $400,000 [in life insurance paid to family members]. Each Hellfire missile is $60,000 and we've used a ton of those. What's the price of peace? It's probably not as costly as the price of unrest. Money is my non-lethal ammunition. I'd rather give somebody a job than have to fight them."

That sentiment is echoed by captain David Dehart, a military intelligence officer working with Brown and other commanders in an area of southern Baghdad that used to be a no-go zone for U.S. troops. "A lot of these guys are $50 away from either putting in an IED [roadside bomb] or standing on a checkpoint with an AK" guarding the neighborhood for us, says Dehart.

Commanders on the ground draw their money from CERP (Commander's Emergency Response Program) funds. CERP funds are meant to cover everything from condolence payments to water and electricity infrastructure improvements. They also can give out micro-grants to neighborhood patrol and checkpoint contracts. The CERP budget for fiscal year 2007 was $750 million and while no cutbacks are expected for 2008 the money hasn't been authorized yet by Congress, which means the army's top brass is playing it safe and tightening its belt. According to Lt. Col. Gerry Messmer, A U.S. civil military operations officer in Baghdad, there is no problem with funding. "We are reviewing all requests for funds and asking the important question of how can we help [Iraqis] help themselves."

But the military bureaucracy can itself be a threat to the funds. A recent turnover of generals in Baghdad has led to a routine review of guidelines, regulations and spending. But what the incoming generals might view as cutting the fat off programs, lower-ranking officers see as a threat to the very goodwill and positive rapport they've worked months to established between themselves and community leaders. Brown says that higher-ups are going to cut the money each contractor receives - Sunni leaders who stick their necks out and who have been increasingly targeted by insurgents in the past few months. About 75% of the contract goes toward the salaries of the guards hired by the contractors. The remaining 25% - or about $11,000 - goes toward so-called administrative costs, which, apart from the minimal amount used to pay for uniforms, goes straight to the contractor himself.

Brown says that initially the plan was to reduce the contractor's take from 25% to a 4%-8% range, upon renewal of each contract. However, he says that officers spoke out and now the reduction is going to be more gradual, from 25% to 20%, and then to 10%. There will be cuts for the salary of checkpoint supervisors as well. "You are asking them to risk their lives and then cutting their salary down. It's not fair," says Brown, who regularly stops by his contractors' homes in the evening to sip small cups of sweet, hot Iraqi tea and learn about the neighborhood.

For captain Douglas Willig, who is in charge of an area adjacent to Brown's, the new CLC contracts will mean that 30% of all his workers will take a 30% pay cut next month. "My CLCs are going to change pretty drastically," says Willig. Previously Willig thought he could at least rely upon funds for micro-grants project to spark economic activity by helping Iraqis who wouldn't transition from the CLCs to the army or police to segue into small business. "The feeling was [micro-grants] was the best thing going," says Willig. He has received application packets for $150,000 in grants, but the colonel overseeing his command has only $200,000 in grant money for an area that is more than four times as large as Willig's. The colonel told Willig he will receive $25,000 in grant money, a fifth what he was expecting.

Another line of CERP funding is supposed to provide Willig with $10,000 from which to draw up to $1,000 at a time to pay Iraqis whose property has been damaged during operations. Two families seeking damages - one for $400 and one for $450 for windows blown out and walls broken down during different operations have been waiting for months because Willig's funding has run dry. "I've been telling them to come back later - I haven't had [this line of CERP funding] since October. There's bureaucracy involved and reviews and allocation at different levels. Two months ago I would have said come back tomorrow [to pick up the payment]", says Willig. "Today I've got no idea."

And without funds to encourage cooperation, the fragile peace of the last few months may come undone.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 375

(CNN) -- A former congressman has been charged in connection with his work for an Islamic charity accused of funneling money to an Afghan warlord, prosecutors announced Wednesday.

The money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges against former Michigan Rep. Mark Deli Siljander are part of a 42-count indictment released by the U.S. attorney's office in Kansas City, Missouri.

Siljander "vehemently denies the allegations in the indictment and will enter a not guilty plea," said his attorney, James Hobbs.

Prosecutors allege Siljander's co-defendants -- the directors of an Islamic charity -- hired him to get the organization off a list of agencies suspected of links to terrorism and paid him with stolen U.S. government funds.

The Treasury Department designated the Islamic American Relief Agency as a suspected fundraiser for terrorists in 2004, The Associated Press reported.

Siljander is also accused of lying to federal agents and prosecutors about his work for the group, which allegedly steered $260,000 to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar-- an ally of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

The United States named Hekmatyar a "specially designated global terrorist" in 2003.

The money was sent between 2002 and 2004 to accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan. Some of the funds were supposed to go toward renovating buildings Hekmatyar owns in an Afghan refugee camp, according to the indictment.

Five officers of the charity already faced charges of money laundering, theft of government funds and violating U.S. sanctions on Iraq. Wednesday's indictment adds eight counts involving the transfer of money to Hekmatyar.

Siljander's attorney denied wrongdoing by his client.

"Mr. Siljander was never an officer of the Islamic American Relief Agency, nor was he ever involved in any alleged efforts by IARA to engage in any prohibited financial transactions with any U.S.-designated terrorist, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar," Hobbs said.







ATLANTA -- Court officials say the 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge he lied under oath.

Cobb County Magistrate Frank Cox said Archbishop Earl Paulk of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church was sentenced to 10 years probation and a $1,000 fine for the felony charge.

Paulk turned himself in to authorities Tuesday night after a warrant was issued for his arrest the previous day. The charges stem from a deposition Paulk gave as part of a civil lawsuit against him, his brother Don and the church by a former church employee who says she was coerced into an affair.

Paulk's defense attorney, Joel Pugh, said the warrant took the family by surprise.

"We weren't expecting the warrant to be issued this quickly," Pugh said.

The felony perjury charge against Paulk stems from a civil lawsuit against him, his brother Don and the church by former church employee, Mona Brewer. The lawsuit alleges that Earl Paulk manipulated Brewer into an affair from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation.

In a 2006 deposition for the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was Brewer.

"Mr. Siljander is not even named in those counts."

Siljander served three terms in the House of Representatives before losing to a Republican primary challenger in 1986. He later served as a U.S. delegate to the U.N. General Assembly late in the Reagan administration.









NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street staggered through another volatile session Wednesday, closing mostly lower after a Federal Reserve report showed some economic growth at the end of 2007 and after Intel Corp.'s disappointing profit report.

Stocks gave up a modest rally in the final 20 minutes of trading, continuing the fluctuations seen throughout the session as investors pored over corporate profit reports and economic news that supported varying views about the soundness of the economy.

Stocks initially gained after the Fed report - its Beige Book survey of regional economies - suggested economic activity increased modestly from mid-November through December, though at a slower pace than in a previous survey.

The report seemed to quell some concerns about prospects for the economy that took on fresh urgency after Intel issued disappointing earnings after the closing bell Tuesday.

The Fed's report bolstered enthusiasm among bullish investors who pointed to better-than-expected results from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. The banks' reports appeared to remind Wall Street that while the fallout of souring loans was widespread, it wasn't necessarily evenly felt. Buyout news in the tech sector also gave a boost to sentiment.

"I think the market is trying to find some kind of a correction point," said Subodh Kumar, global investment strategist at Subodh Kumar & Assoc. in Toronto. "The talk on Wall Street has been about recession. Maybe the Beige Book has underscored that the U.S. is in a slowdown but that it doesn't look like a precipitous one."

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 34.95, or 0.28 percent, to 12,466.16.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 374

The bubonic plague, which killed millions of people in medieval England, is making a return in the world, an ecology expert in Liverpool claims.

Research by Professor Michael Begon at the University of Liverpool revealed the deadly disease, also known as the Black Death, has re-emerged.

It has only killed 200 people since 1998, but Prof Begon said the threat is "growing" in Africa and the US.

The plague is caused by infected fleas carried by rats which spreads easily.

Prof Begon claims that while the majority of cases in the last five years have been seen in African states, there have also been up to 20 victims in the US each year.

When U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie announced a $311 million settlement to end a probe into kickbacks by leading manufacturers of knee and hip replacements, he touted the agreement as a groundbreaking development for consumers and the industry.

The deal also proved to be lucrative for Christie's old boss.

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was one of five private attorneys that Christie hand-picked to monitor the implant makers. Now Ashcroft's D.C.-based firm is poised to collect more than $52 million in 18 months, among the biggest payouts ever reported for a federal monitor.

Disclosed in SEC filings, the arrangement calls for Zimmer Holdings of Indiana to pay Ashcroft Group Consulting Services an average monthly fee between $1.5 million and $2.9 million. The figure includes a flat payment of $750,000 to the firm's "senior leadership group," individual legal and consulting services billed at up to $895 an hour, and as much as $250,000 a month for expenses including private airfare, lodging and meals.

A spokesman for Ashcroft said Monday that the former Attorney General was "uniquely qualified" for the role as monitor and that more than 30 professionals at his firm were working on the matter. The spokesman, Mark Corallo, called the fee structure "consistent with any other large scale-monitoring circumstances," but could not immediately point to similar cases.

Christie said he was not involved in setting Ashcroft's fee, but that no one had objected to the compensation. He said prosecutors did not impose fines on Zimmer and the other implant makers because they knew the companies would be paying substantial monitoring fees.

"These companies visited this upon themselves with their criminal conduct," Christie said. "Given what these companies were costing the American taxpayers, the fees that these monitors charge for changing the industry's practices will be a real bargain at the end of the day."









WASHINGTON (AP) -- Retailers, home builders and many manufacturers should brace for even more rough times ahead, a somber Federal Reserve suggested Wednesday amid growing fears that the U.S. might be sliding into recession.

The Fed's snapshot of business conditions showed a national economy losing momentum heading into the new year and a future riddled with uncertainty. The persistent housing slump and harder-to-get credit are making people and businesses ever more cautious, it said.

Separately on Wednesday, more big banks reported losses and said people were having trouble making payments for everything from credit cards to cars. Stocks were mostly down for the day, the Dow Jones industrial average declining 34.95 points, or 0.28 percent.

The Fed report was the unwelcome icing on a recent batch of economic indicators -- ranging from a plunge in retail sales to a big jump in unemployment -- raising concern that the country is heading for its first recession since 2001.

At the beginning of last year, many economists put the chance of a recession at less than 1-in-3; now an increasing number say 50-50 or even worse. Goldman Sachs, the biggest investment bank on Wall Street, thinks a recession is inevitable this year.

The Fed report said the economy did grow during the survey period -- from the middle of November through December -- but more slowly than during the late fall. Credit problems intensified in December as did troubles in the housing market. That threw Wall Street into new turbulence.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 373

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The chief of the U.S. military said Sunday he favors closing the prison here as soon as possible because he believes negative publicity worldwide about treatment of terrorist suspects has been “pretty damaging” to the image of the United States.

“I’d like to see it shut down,” Adm. Mike Mullen said in an interview with three reporters who toured the detention center with him on his first visit since becoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last October.

His visit came two days after the sixth anniversary of the prison’s opening in January 2002. He stressed that a closure decision was not his to make and that he understands there are numerous complex legal questions the administration believes would have to be settled first, such as where to move prisoners.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli tanks and helicopters raided Gaza on Tuesday, killing the son of the territory's most powerful leader and 18 other Palestinians in the bloodiest day of fighting since Hamas seized the coastal strip in June.

Palestinian sniper fire across the border killed a 19-year-old volunteer from Ecudor at an Israeli communal farm.

That death, and the killing of Hussam Zahar, 24, the son of hardline Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, threatened to fuel the violence at a time when Israel and the Palestinians are trying to move peacemaking into high gear.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Army is investigating the possibility three soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division who died in a firefight in Iraq may have been killed by friendly fire, according to U.S. military officials.

Those officials emphasized it is not yet certain how the soldiers were killed January 8, but confirmed their families were notified of the friendly fire possibility.

The incident took place southwest of Samarra, when the unit, on patrol, discovered buildings filled with explosives and weapon-making material. After further searching, they encountered more than a dozen insurgents fighting from a network of tunnels and trenches.

In the ensuing firefight, helicopters and other aircraft were called to attack targets. The officials said it's possible three of the troops died as a result of those airstrikes.

At the morgue at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Mahmoud Zahar held his lifeless son's bloodied head in his hands and closed his eyes, then kissed him three times on the forehead and recited verses from the Muslim holy book, the Quran.

Zahar's eldest son was killed in a botched Israeli assassination attempt against the Hamas leader in 2003. Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio that Hussam Zahar, who is survived by a brother and four sisters, was not targeted by Israeli forces.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 372

WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will not tap the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to ease oil prices that hit a record high of $100 a barrel on Wednesday, the White House said.

"This president will not use the SPR to manipulate (oil prices)," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "Doing a temporary release of the SPR is not going to change prices very much."

Perino said the Bush administration understood that high energy prices hurt family budgets and small businesses, but it believes that using the emergency oil stockpile to lower crude prices is not the solution.

"We have to figure out a way to increase supply here in the United States," she said. "The SPR is supposed to be used for emergencies. We know that markets work."

The stockpile was created by Congress in 1975 in response to the Arab oil embargo. The reserve now holds about 698 million barrels of crude at four underground storage sites in Texas and Louisiana.

The Energy Department said that, despite record high prices, it would not delay oil deliveries to the reserve and will carry out its plan to add 12.3 million barrels of crude to stockpile during the first half of this year.

NEW YORK (AP) - Oil prices climbed Monday as forecasts for blustery weather nationwide raised expectations that demand for energy will surge in the coming days.

A declining dollar and rising political tensions in the Middle East contributed to the advance, apparently outweighing worries that a weakening U.S. economy could curb oil demand.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery rose $1.51 to settle at $94.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude gained $1.85 to finish at $92.92 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

"The main thrust to the upside is pretty clearly weather driven," said Citigroup Global Markets energy analyst Tim Evans. "That has the natural gas market extending last week's gains and making heating oil the leader on the upside of the petroleum complex."

Heating oil futures added more than 5 cents to settle at $2.5892 a gallon, while natural gas futures gained 14.3 cents to $8.353 per 1,000 cubic feet.

WASHINGTON - Wholesale inflation last year shot up by the largest amount in 26 years while retailers suffered their worst December shopping season in five years as mounting economic woes caused consumers to put away their wallets.

The Labor Department reported that wholesale inflation was up 6.3 percent for all of 2007, reflecting a huge increase for the year in various types of energy costs ranging from gasoline to home heating oil.

Meanwhile, retail sales fell by 0.4 percent in December, the worst showing in six months, the Commerce Department reported. Consumer confidence has plunged, reflecting the worsening housing slump and a lingering credit crisis.

In a third report, the government said that inventories held by businesses rose by 0.4 percent in November, reflecting big increases in stockpiles held by manufacturers and wholesalers. The 0.4 percent rise matched a similar increase in September and was in line with expectations. Inventories had risen by a much smaller 0.1 percent in October.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 371

Late one night in the summer of 2005, Matthew Sepi, a 20-year-old Iraq combat veteran, headed out to a 7-Eleven in the seedy Las Vegas neighborhood where he had settled after leaving the Army.

Sepi did not like to venture outside too late. But, plagued by nightmares about an Iraqi civilian killed by his unit, he said he often needed alcohol to fall asleep.

And so it was that night, when, seized by a gut feeling of danger, he slid a trench coat over his slight frame -- and tucked an assault rifle inside it.

"Matthew knew he shouldn't be taking his AK-47 to the 7-Eleven," Detective Laura Andersen said, "but he was scared to death in that neighborhood, he was military trained and, in his mind, he needed the weapon to protect himself."

A battle-weary grenadier who was still legally underage, Sepi paid a stranger to buy him two tall cans of beer. As he started home, two gang members, both armed, stepped out of the darkness. Sepi said in an interview that he spied the butt of a gun, heard a boom, saw a flash and "just snapped."

In the end, one gang member lay dead. The other was wounded. And Sepi fled, "breaking contact" with the enemy, as he later described it. With his rifle raised, he crept home, loaded 180 rounds of ammunition into his car and drove until police lights flashed behind him.

"Who did I take fire from?" he asked urgently. The diminutive young man said he had been ambushed and then instinctively "engaged the targets." He shook. He also cried.

"I felt very bad for him," Andersen said.

Sepi was booked, and a local newspaper reported: "Iraq veteran arrested in killing."

Town by town across the country, headlines have told similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: "Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife." Pierre, S.D.: "Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress." Colorado Springs: "Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring."

Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon. The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment -- along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems -- appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

About a third of the victims were spouses, girlfriends, children or other relatives, among them 2-year-old Krisiauna Calaira Lewis, whose 20-year-old father slammed her against a wall when he was recuperating in Texas from a bombing near Fallujah that blew off his foot and shook up his brain.

A quarter of the victims were fellow service members, including Spc. Richard Davis of the Army, who was stabbed repeatedly and then set ablaze, his body hidden in the woods by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq.

And the rest were acquaintances or strangers, among them, Noah P. Gamez, 21, who was breaking into a car at a Tucson motel when an Iraq combat veteran, also 21, caught him, shot him dead and killed himself outside San Diego with one of several guns found in his car.

The Pentagon does not keep track of such killings, most of which are prosecuted not by the military justice system but by civilian courts. Neither does the Justice Department.

Given that many veterans rebound successfully from their war experiences and some flourish as a result of them, veterans groups have long deplored the attention paid to the minority of soldiers who fail to readjust to civilian life. An article in the Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine in 2006 referred with disdain to the pervasive "wacko-vet myth," which, veterans say, makes it difficult for them to find jobs.

But few of these 121 war veterans received more than a cursory mental health screening at the end of their deployments, according to interviews with the veterans, lawyers, relatives and prosecutors. Many displayed symptoms of combat trauma after their return, but they were not evaluated for or diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder until after they were arrested for homicides.

What seems clear is that experiences on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah shadowed these men back to places like Longview, Texas, and Edwardsville, Ill.

"He came back different" is the shared refrain of the defendants' family members, who mention irritability, detachment, volatility, sleeplessness, excessive drinking or drug use, and keeping a gun at hand.

At the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution in Nebraska, Seth Strasburg, 29, displays an imposing, biker-style presence. Beneath this fierce exterior, however, Strasburg, an Iraq combat veteran who pleaded guilty to unintentional manslaughter last year, hides a tortured compulsion to understand his actions.

In Arnold, Neb., population 679, the killing last year by Strasburg of Thomas Tiffany Varney V, a pre-mortuary science major known as Moose, was a deeply unsettling event.

"To lose one young man permanently and another to prison, with Iraq mixed up in the middle of it -- the town was torn up," said Pamela Eggleston, a waitress at Suzy's Pizza and Spirits.

In 2004, Strasburg's section was engaged in a mission to counter a proliferation of improvised explosive devices on the road west of Mosul. One night, he watched the road for hours until an Iraqi man, armed and out after curfew, appeared. Finally, the man bent down, straining to pick up a large white flour sack, which he dragged toward the road.

"In my mind at the time, he had this IED hidden out there during the day and he was going to set it in place," Strasburg said. "We radioed it in. They said, 'Whatever, use your discretion.' So I popped him."

With others on his reconnaissance team, Strasburg helped zip the man into a body bag, taking a few minutes to study the face that he now says he cannot forget.

When they went to search the flour sack, they found nothing but gravel.

"I reported the kill to the battalion," Strasburg said. "They said, you know: 'Good shot. It's legal. Whatever. Don't worry about it.' After that, it was never mentioned. But, you know, I had some issues with it later."

Strasburg's voice broke and he turned his head, wiping his eyes. A reporter noted that he was upset.

"I'm trying not to be," he said, then changed his mind. "I mean, how can you not be? If you're human. What if I had waited?"

"Maybe I was too eager," he added. "Maybe I wanted to be the first one to get a kill, you know? Maybe, maybe, maybe. And that will never go away."









California and 15 other states sued the Bush administration Wednesday, seeking to overturn a federal decision last month rejecting the state's bid to curb greenhouse gases from cars and trucks.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, marks a new round in an epic five-year struggle between California and the federal government over whether states have the power to regulate carbon dioxide and other pollutants that cause global warming.

The controversy also spilled into Congress, as Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) prepared to hold hearings on whether the White House and automakers influenced the Environmental Protection Agency's decision, which was required to be based on scientific and legal grounds.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that oversees the agency's funding, on Monday called on the EPA's inspector general to "immediately open an investigation. . . . The thought has occurred that this was a political decision rather than an environmental decision and that cannot be countenanced."

Under the federal Clean Air Act, California is allowed to enact stricter air pollution laws than the federal government as long as the state is given a waiver from the EPA.

Waivers have been routinely granted in roughly 50 cases during the last three decades, allowing the state to lead the way in catalytic converters, unleaded gasoline and other areas.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 370

Mitt Romney:

Mitt Romney’s eyes filled with tears Monday as the Republican presidential contender recalled watching the casket of a soldier killed in Iraq return to the United States and imagined if it were one of his five sons. Adding a poignant twist to a story he often tells on the campaign, Romney recalled the scene at Boston’s Logan International Airport while he was Massachusetts governor. [AP, 12/17/07]

But the fact that he teared up, people said, “Whoa, we thought he was so wooden and robotic, and there he is actually tearing up.” So actually, I think it does have an impact. It’s a genuine moment. It seems genuine. [Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe, MSNBC, 12/17/07]

President Bush:

The pictures were just what the White House wanted: A teary-eyed President Bush presenting the Medal of Honor posthumously to a slain war hero in the East Room. [Washington Post, 1/12/07]

A tear rolled down Bush’s cheek during the event, an extraordinary display of emotion by the commander-in-chief. Bush has been known to tear up and reportedly once cried in a private meeting with war widows. [Chicago Sun-Times, 1/12/07]

The president is tremendously sentimental. Forget about putting his parents anywhere near him. At his inauguration he purposely kept them out of his line of sight so he could stay as dry-eyed as possible. He has learned not to brush the tears away. [Newsweek, 4/02]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates

Robert Gates almost broke down as he gave a speech at a Marine Corps dinner. … Mr Gates’s show of feeling suggests that he brings a more human side to the role of defence secretary. [BBC, 7/19/07]

What is less often visible is the toll this war takes on the people who run the operation. Tonight we have a rare glimpse of emotion from a man who normally carefully chooses his words, the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. … a rare public display of emotion from the civilian in charge of this war effort. [NBC News, 7/19/07]

George H.W. Bush

Wiping away tears as he recalled praying at Camp David before ordering the start of the Persian Gulf war, President Bush today offered a testimony of emotion, politics and faith to a cheering crowd of thousands of Southern Baptists. [New York Times, 7/7/91]l

If you don’t mind thinking about the Bush legacy a year early, there are worse places to begin than with the case of Erla Ósk Arnardóttir Lilliendahl. Admittedly, she isn’t an ideal “tempest-tost” candidate for Emma Lazarus’ famous lines engraved on a bronze plaque inside the Statue of Liberty. After all, she flew to New York City with her girlfriends, first class, from her native Iceland, to partake of “the Christmas spirit.” She was drinking white wine en route and, as she put it, “look[ing] forward to go shopping, eat good food, and enjoy life.” On an earlier vacation trip, back in 1995, she had overstayed her visa by three weeks, a modest enough infraction, and had even returned the following year without incident.

This time — with the President’s Global War on Terror in full swing — she was pulled aside at passport control at JFK Airport, questioned about those extra three weeks 12 years ago, and soon found herself, as she put it, “handcuffed and chained, denied the chance to sleep… without food and drink and… confined to a place without anyone knowing my whereabouts, imprisoned.” It was “the greatest humiliation to which I have ever been subjected.”

By her account, she was photographed, fingerprinted, asked rude questions — “by men anxious to demonstrate their power. Small kings with megalomania” — confined to a tiny room for hours, then chained, marched through the airport, and driven to a jail in New Jersey where, for another nine hours, she found herself “in a small, dirty cell.” On being prepared for the return trip to JFK and deportation, approximately 24 hours after first debarking, she was, despite her pleas, despite her tears, again handcuffed and put in leg chains, all, as she put it, “because I had taken a longer vacation than allowed under the law.”

On returning to her country, she wrote a blog about her unnerving experience and the Icelandic Foreign Minister Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir met with U.S. Ambassador Carol van Voorst to demand an apology. Just as when egregious American acts in Iraq or Afghanistan won’t go away, the Department of Homeland Security announced an “investigation,” a “review of its work procedures” and expressed “regrets.” But an admission of error or an actual apology? Uh, what era do you imagine we’re living in?

Erla Ósk will undoubtedly think twice before taking another fun-filled holiday in the U.S., but her experience was no aberration among Icelanders visiting the U.S. In fact, it’s a relatively humdrum one these days, especially if you appear to be of Middle Eastern background.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal prosecutors will investigate the destruction of CIA videotapes showing agents interrogating terrorism suspects, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Wednesday.

Prosecutors and FBI agents will try to determine whether any laws were broken after a preliminary inquiry found enough evidence to pursue possible criminal charges.

The CIA admitted last month to videotaping the questioning of al Qaeda suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002.

The tapes reportedly showed rough interrogation techniques, including the use of "waterboarding," which simulates drowning.

Mukasey said he has appointed John Durham, a prosecutor from the U.S. attorney's office in Connecticut, to lead the investigation.

The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, where the CIA is located, typically would investigate, but Mukasey said he tapped Durham because federal prosecutors in the Virginia district already are probing the intelligence community.

The CIA "will of course cooperate fully with this investigation as it has with the others into this matter," said Mark Mansfield, a spokesman for the agency.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 369

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Countrywide Financial Corp., its stock pummeled this week by rumors of bankruptcy and lackluster housing market forecasts, said Wednesday the percentage of borrowers who missed payments on home loans last month rose, signaling worsening trouble for the nation's largest mortgage lender and for the entire mortgage sector.

The company also reported that it had funded $23.5 billion in loans in December - a steep decline from $42.8 billion in the year-ago period.

"Their new business is down roughly 50 percent," said Sean Egan, managing director of independent ratings firm Egan-Jones Ratings Co. in Philadelphia.

"The market is fairly concerned whether the company is going to be able to correct the fundamental problems that it's faced with," he said.

The new figures drove Countrywide stock down by more than 15 percent at one point in the day before it recovered to end down 6.4 percent, or 35 cents, at $5.12.

The decline followed a loss of $2.17, or 28.4 percent, on Tuesday after the company denied rumors that a bankruptcy filing was imminent.

Wachovia Capital Markets analyst Jim Shanahan suggested Countrywide stock will remain volatile at least until the company reports its financial results for the fourth quarter later this month.

Countrywide said some 6.96 percent of the loans in its servicing portfolio were delinquent last month, up from 5.02 percent in December 2006.

Loan delinquencies as a percentage of unpaid principal balances jumped to 7.20 percent from 6.52 percent.

About 1.04 percent of the mortgage loans were pending foreclosure, up from 0.65 percent.

Meanwhile, Moody's Investors Service lowered the credit ratings of some mortgage-backed financing deals issued by Countrywide last year, saying it anticipates higher rates of delinquency, foreclosure and bank repossession in the home loans used as collateral.




GULF OF TONK...wait...

Just two days after the U.S. Navy released the eerie video of Iranian speedboats swarming around American warships, which featured a chilling threat in English, the Navy is saying that the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.

The near-clash occurred over the weekend in the Strait of Hormuz. On the U.S.-released recording, a voice can be heard saying to the Americans, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes."

The Navy never said specifically where the voices came from, but many were left with the impression they had come from the speedboats because of the way the Navy footage was edited.

Today, the spokesperson for the U.S. admiral in charge of the Fifth Fleet clarified to ABC News that the threat may have come from the Iranian boats, or it may have come from somewhere else.

We're saying that we cannot make a direct connection to the boats there," said the spokesperson. "It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we're not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we're not saying it absolutely didn't."

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 368

Top Ten Myths about Iraq 2007

10. Myth: The US public no longer sees Iraq as a central issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.

In a recent ABC News/ Washington Post poll, Iraq and the economy were virtually tied among voters nationally, with nearly a quarter of voters in each case saying it was their number one issue. The economy had become more important to them than in previous months (in November only 14% said it was their most pressing concern), but Iraq still rivals it as an issue!

9. Myth: There have been steps toward religious and political reconciliation in Iraq in 2007. Fact: The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has for the moment lost the support of the Sunni Arabs in parliament. The Sunnis in his cabinet have resigned. Even some Shiite parties have abandoned the government. Sunni Arabs, who are aware that under his government Sunnis have largely been ethnically cleansed from Baghdad, see al-Maliki as a sectarian politician uninterested in the welfare of Sunnis.

8. Myth: The US troop surge stopped the civil war that had been raging between Sunni Arabs and Shiites in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

Fact: The civil war in Baghdad escalated during the US troop escalation. Between January, 2007, and July, 2007, Baghdad went from 65% Shiite to 75% Shiite. UN polling among Iraqi refugees in Syria suggests that 78% are from Baghdad and that nearly a million refugees relocated to Syria from Iraq in 2007 alone. This data suggests that over 700,000 residents of Baghdad have fled this city of 6 million during the US 'surge,' or more than 10 percent of the capital's population. Among the primary effects of the 'surge' has been to turn Baghdad into an overwhelmingly Shiite city and to displace hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from the capital.

7. Myth: Iran was supplying explosively formed projectiles (a deadly form of roadside bomb) to Salafi Jihadi (radical Sunni) guerrilla groups in Iraq. Fact: Iran has not been proved to have sent weapons to any Iraqi guerrillas at all. It certainly would not send weapons to those who have a raging hostility toward Shiites. (Iran may have supplied war materiel to its client, the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq (ISCI), which was then sold off from warehouses because of graft, going on the arms market and being bought by guerrillas and militiamen.

6. Myth: The US overthrow of the Baath regime and military occupation of Iraq has helped liberate Iraqi women. Fact: Iraqi women have suffered significant reversals of status, ability to circulate freely, and economic situation under the Bush administration.

5. Myth: Some progress has been made by the Iraqi government in meeting the "benchmarks" worked out with the Bush administration. Fact: in the words of Democratic Senator Carl Levin, "Those legislative benchmarks include approving a hydrocarbon law, approving a debaathification law, completing the work of a constitutional review committee, and holding provincial elections. Those commitments, made 1 1/2 years ago, which were to have been completed by January of 2007, have not yet been kept by the Iraqi political leaders despite the breathing space the surge has provided."

4. Myth: The Sunni Arab "Awakening Councils," who are on the US payroll, are reconciling with the Shiite government of PM Nuri al-Maliki even as they take on al-Qaeda remnants. Fact: In interviews with the Western press, Awakening Council tribesmen often speak of attacking the Shiites after they have polished off al-Qaeda. A major pollster working in Iraq observed,

' Most of the recent survey results he has seen about political reconciliation, Warshaw said, are "more about [Iraqis] reconciling with the United States within their own particular territory, like in Anbar. . . . But it doesn't say anything about how Sunni groups feel about Shiite groups in Baghdad." Warshaw added: "In Iraq, I just don't hear statements that come from any of the Sunni, Shiite or Kurdish groups that say 'We recognize that we need to share power with the others, that we can't truly dominate.' " ' '

The polling shows that "the Iraqi government has still made no significant progress toward its fundamental goal of national reconciliation."

3. Myth: The Iraqi north is relatively quiet and a site of economic growth. Fact: The subterranean battle among Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs for control of the oil-rich Kirkuk province makes the Iraqi north a political mine field. Kurdistan now also hosts the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas that sneak over the border and kill Turkish troops. The north is so unstable that the Iraqi north is now undergoing regular bombing raids from Turkey.

2. Myth: Iraq has been "calm" in fall of 2007 and the Iraqi public, despite some grumbling, is not eager for the US to depart. Fact: in the past 6 weeks, there have been an average of 600 attacks a month, or 20 a day, which has held steady since the beginning of November. About 600 civilians are being killed in direct political violence per month, but that number excludes deaths of soldiers and police. Across the board, Iraqis believe that their conflicts are mainly caused by the US military presence and they are eager for it to end.

1. Myth: The reduction in violence in Iraq is mostly because of the escalation in the number of US troops, or "surge."

Fact: Although violence has been reduced in Iraq, much of the reduction did not take place because of US troop activity. Guerrilla attacks in al-Anbar Province were reduced from 400 a week to 100 a week between July, 2006 and July, 2007. But there was no significant US troop escalation in al-Anbar. Likewise, attacks on British troops in Basra have declined precipitously since they were moved out to the airport away from population centers. But this change had nothing to do with US troops.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 367

BAGHDAD -- The suicide bomber walked straight to the Sunni Arab leader of a group battling Al Qaeda in Iraq, shook his target's hand and detonated the explosives wrapped around his body.

Minutes later, as survivors were being moved to safety, witnesses said a second suicide attacker drove into the north Baghdad compound and set off his explosives.

The apparently coordinated attack killed at least 14 people, including Col. Riyadh Samarrai, commander of the Adhamiya neighborhood's citizens security group, police and government officials said.

The U.S. military immediately denounced the attack on the American-backed neighborhood group, blaming Al Qaeda in Iraq for finding "new depths of depravity" to fight those who reject its ideology.

By evening, eight bombs had exploded in Baghdad neighborhoods east of the Tigris River, killing at least 18 people and injuring more than three dozen. Some officials put the death toll as high as 25 and the injury count at more than 50.

In a separate incident, 20 gunmen ambushed a security checkpoint manned by members of another neighborhood patrol in northeastern Baghdad, kidnapping eight of them, Iraqi government officials said.

Samarrai's assassination in the Sabaa Abkar area just outside of Adhamiya comes as the U.S. military has been heralding the rise of citizens groups, known as Awakening Councils, as a key reason for a reduction in violence. The attack came nine days after Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden threatened to punish those who aid Americans.

Since Bin Laden's threat, the attacks have been hitting the capital almost daily. A suicide bomber targeted a funeral, killing at least 34 people on New Year's Day. On Sunday, at least three Iraqi soldiers were killed in the middle of an Army Day celebration, moments after they had been jubilantly dancing in the streets, shouting, "Where is terrorism now?"

The increase in the number of bombings is raising unsettling questions: Can the Awakening movement progress even as leaders have become targets? And is violence in the capital returning after months of relative calm?

"The remnants of Al Qaeda [in Iraq] are only trying to prove their existence by choosing random targets," said Brig. Gen. Qassim Musawi, a spokesman for Baghdad's security forces. "We did warn our people that it's not over, to be careful. Our hard efforts for eight months did have positive results, but things will not be perfect just overnight."

MEDICARE FRAUD

Federal officials are expected to announce in Los Angeles today a nationwide effort to combat fraudulent Medicare billing by medical equipment suppliers in 70 urban areas.

Such fraud in the federal healthcare program for the elderly has increased in recent years, particularly in the sprawling urban areas of Southern California and south Florida where many of the most vulnerable Medicare recipients live.

In one case, 84-year-old Alice Christoff, who is legally blind and cannot walk, says she went shopping for a new electronic wheelchair last year only to have a saleswoman foist upon her a series of products she didn't need or want, including costly -- but subpar -- electronic wheelchairs, a hospital bed and hydraulic bathroom lift. All of it was billed to Medicare, at a cost of more than $28,300.

"I don't understand anything about medical equipment," said Christoff, a retired accountant in Santa Maria. "When she said I had to have it, I just said OK."

As part of their effort to stop such fraud, officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services plan to require medical equipment suppliers to be vetted by approved accrediting agencies, some of the same ones that vet pharmacies and hospitals. Moreover, suppliers would have to set their prices through a competitive bidding process. The rules will begin to take effect this spring.

Decrying the new rules as too heavy-handed, some of the country's 116,000 medical equipment suppliers say they may quit serving Medicare patients.

Under the current process, suppliers apply to the government to participate in the program, undergo an inspection and meet general standards for running a legitimate business -- proof of address, phone number and inventory, for example. Patients pay about 20% of the government's listed price, and suppliers bill Medicare for the rest.

Until last year, suppliers usually were screened and inspected only once, when they applied for a Medicare billing number. Many posed as legitimate businesses but billed Medicare for equipment that they never delivered, that wasn't prescribed or that patients didn't need, Medicare officials said.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Six U.S. soldiers were killed Wednesday in Iraq when a bomb exploded in a booby-trapped house while they were on patrol north of Baghdad, the military announced.

U.S. soldiers conduct a house-to-house assessment mission in Baghdad on Wednesday.

Four soldiers were also wounded in the attack and evacuated to a coalition forces hospital, Multi-National Corps-Iraq said.

The troops were taking part in Operation Iron Harvest -- a new drive against Islamic militants in northern Iraq after a spate of attacks on local anti-insurgent groups.

The operation is part of a nationwide push against jihadists loyal to al Qaeda in the provinces of Diyala, Salaheddin, Nineveh, and Tameem.