Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 421

By Matthew Lee

Al-Qaida has rebuilt some of its pre-Sept. 11 capabilities from remote hiding places in Pakistan, leading to a jump in attacks last year in that country and neighboring Afghanistan, the Bush administration said Wednesday.

Attacks in Pakistan doubled between 2006 and 2007 and the number of fatalities quadrupled, the State Department said in its annual terrorism report. In Afghanistan, the number of attacks rose 16 percent, to 1,127 incidents last year.

The report says attacks in Iraq dipped slightly between 2006 and 2007, but they still accounted for 60 percent of worldwide terrorism fatalities, including 17 of the 19 Americans who were killed in attacks last year. The other two were killed in Afghanistan.

More than 22,000 people were killed by terrorists around the world in 2007, 8 percent more than in 2006, although the overall number of attacks fell, the report says.

The report once again identifies Iran as the world's "most active" state sponsor of terrorism for supporting Palestinian extremists and insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, where it says elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps continued to provide militants with weapons, training and funding.

"In this way, Iranian government forces have been responsible for attacks on coalition forces," State Department counter terrorism coordinator Dell Dailey told reporters. Iranian forces are also giving weapons and financial aid to the Taliban in Afghanistan, he said.

About 13,600 noncombatants were killed in 2007 in Iraq, the report says, adding the high number could be attributed to a 50 percent increase in the number of suicide bombings. Suicide car bombings were up 40 percent and suicide bombings outside of vehicles climbed 90 percent over 2006, it says.

"The ability of these attackers to penetrate large concentrations of people and then detonate their explosives may account for the increase in lethality of bombings in 2007," the report says.

In Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, al-Qaida and its affiliates remain "the greatest terrorist threat to the United States and its partners" despite ongoing efforts to combat followers of Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to the report. It says Zawahiri has emerged as the group's "strategic and operational planner."

"It has reconstituted some of its pre-9/11 operational capabilities through the exploitation of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, replacement of captured or killed operational lieutenants, and the restoration of some central control by its top leadership, in particular Ayman al-Zawahiri," it says.

Dailey, however, stressed that al-Qaida is still weaker overall than it was before Sept. 11, 2001.

A primary reason for its resurgence was a cease-fire the Pakistani government reached with tribal leaders last year, the report says. That truce has since ended but Pakistan's new government is now renegotiating a similar agreement that some fear could have similar results and further undermine efforts to battle al-Qaida.

The earlier cease-fire and instability in the region appear "to have provided al-Qaida leadership greater mobility and ability to conduct training and operational planning, particularly that targeting Western Europe and the United States," the report says.

"Numerous senior al-Qaida operatives have been captured or killed, but al-Qaida leaders continued to plot attacks and to cultivate stronger operational connections that radiated outward from Pakistan to affiliates throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe," it says.

Of particular concern are al-Qaida sympathizers who attacked a U.N. building in Algeria, killing more than 40 people and wounding more than 150 last year, the report says.

In Pakistan, the State Department recorded more than 45 suicide bombings in 2007, up from a total of just 22 such incidents between 2002 and 2006. Among those logged last year were the December attack that killed former Prime

Minister Benazir Bhutto and an October attack on her homecoming parade that killed more than 130 people, the worst suicide attack in Pakistani history.














By Richard C. Paddock
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to slash higher education funding by about 10% would deny education to tens of thousands of qualified students and have a devastating long-term effect on the state's economy, university and college leaders said Wednesday.

The governor's proposed cutbacks for the University of California, California State University and the state's community college system also would mean reductions in financial aid, fewer classes and a decrease in student services, such as counseling, they said.

"California as a state is at a crossroads," Cal State Chancellor Charles Reed said during a telephone news conference. "What is California going to look like in the next 20 years? . . . Funding of higher education needs to become more of a priority if California is going to invest in our future."

A study released Wednesday by the Campaign for College Opportunity concludes that cutbacks earlier in the decade were so severe that the universities still have not rebounded. If Schwarzenegger's new cuts take effect, the universities might not recover for 10 years, he said.

With the new round of cuts, for example, UC and Cal State would have to reduce enrollment by 27,000 over the next 2 1/2 years, enough students to populate a campus, the study found.

The study echoes a report released last week by the UC Academic Senate, which concluded that the governor's plan would reduce the quality of teaching and research at UC and push the 10-campus system closer to privatization by relying heavily on student fees.

To maintain the current level of quality at UC while making up for the cuts, annual student fees would have to jump to $10,500, from $7,511, the UC study found. Within a few years, fees at UC could rise as high as $18,000, it concluded.

"The Schwarzenegger revision accelerates the redefinition of the University of California away from a public university and toward a 'public-private partnership,' " the UC study said. "The university becomes dependent on high student fees for delivering its core educational mission. . . . The university becomes quasi-private or poor -- or perhaps both at once."

UC has been suffering for years from what the Academic Senate study called a "hollowing out" because of lack of money. "From a distance, all appears normal; once one goes inside, the damage is clear," it said. Leaky roofs go unrepaired; valuable faculty leave for better-paying universities; labs are short of equipment and readers to grade assignments; and teaching assistants are in short supply, the UC study said. On at least one campus, faculty office telephones were shut off to save money, and professors there now must use their cellphones.

Sabrina Lockhart, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, said the governor recognizes that the budget cuts would cause hardship for students as well as the universities and community colleges.

"This is not the governor's first choice," she said. "Unfortunately these are difficult but necessary steps to bring spending in line with revenues. The state doesn't have all the money it needs to fund these programs."

Many of the problems facing the university are rooted in steep budget cutbacks in 2002 and 2003 that followed the dot-com bust.


















Copyright AFP

CIA chief Michael Hayden charged Wednesday that China was beefing up its military with "remarkable speed and scope," calling the buildup "troubling."

The Chinese, he said, had fully absorbed the lessons of both Gulf wars, developing and integrating advanced weaponry into a modern military force.

Hayden said while Beijing's new capabilities could pose a risk to US forces and interests in the region, the military modernization was as much about projecting strength as anything else.

"After two centuries of perceived Western hegemony, China is determined to flex its muscle," he said in a speech at Kansas State University. "It sees an advanced military force as an essential element of great power status."

But it is the intelligence community's view that any Chinese regime, even a democratic one, will have similar national goals, said Hayden, once the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the armed forces.

"Don't misunderstand. The military buildup is troubling because it reinforces long-held concerns about Chinese intentions towards Taiwan," he said.

"But even without that issue, we assess the buildup would continue -- albeit one that might look somewhat different," he said.

Taiwan and China split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, but Beijing still sees the island as part of its territory.

The United States, obliged by law to offer Taiwan a means of self-defense if its security is threatened, is the leading arms supplier to the island.

Hayden said even though China was a competitor in the economic realm and increasingly on the geopolitical stage, it was "not an inevitable enemy."

"There are good policy choices available to both Washington and Beijing that can keep us on the largely peaceful, constructive path we've been on for almost 40 years now," he said.

A Pentagon report said this year that China had boosted total military spending in 2007 to more than twice its declared budget.

The report raised concern over China's expanding military power, including its development of cruise and ballistic missiles capable of striking aircraft carriers and other warships at sea, anti-satellite weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

China dismissed the Pentagon report as an exaggeration, made in order to justify US sales of military hardware to Beijing's rival Taiwan.

The Pentagon estimated China's total military spending in 2007 at between 97 and 139 billion dollars, more than double China's declared budget of 45 billion dollars.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 420

By Kim Gamel

Dozens of fighters ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad's main Shiite militia stronghold Tuesday, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun bursts as the American push into Sadr City increasingly faces pockets of close urban combat.

U.S. forces struck back with 200-pound guided rockets that devastated at least three buildings in the densely packed district that serves as the Baghdad base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia.

The U.S. military said 28 militiamen were killed as the U.S. patrol pulled back. Local hospital officials said dozens of civilians were killed or wounded.

Such street battles — in tight confines and amid frightened civilians — are increasingly becoming a hallmark of the drive into Sadr City and recall the type of head-on clashes last seen in large numbers during last year's U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad and surrounding areas.

U.S. troops often have fought intense gunbattles as they cleared neighborhoods in Baghdad and former Sunni insurgent havens such as Anbar and Diyala provinces. But roadside bombings and rocket or mortar volleys against bases have been the more frequent mode of attack in recent years.

Meanwhile, two U.S. soldiers were killed in northwestern Baghdad on Tuesday, the military said. One soldier died when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device. The other died of wounds sustained when he was attacked by small-arms fire, the military said in a statement. No other details were immediately available.

Clashes have intensified in Sadr City since the Mahdi Army leader — the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — reiterated his threat of an all-out war against U.S.-led forces last week. U.S. troops, meanwhile, find themselves increasingly drawn into the fight opened by the Iraqi government to cripple the power of Shiite militias.

"We are seeing larger groups of militants actually aggressively attacking Iraqi and U.S. security forces," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a military spokesman for American troops in Baghdad. "We've seen more of the brazen attacks in the daytime recently."

The ambush Tuesday came as a U.S. patrol of heavily armored Stryker vehicles and tanks moved along a road where the U.S. military is putting up a concrete barrier — which seeks to cut off the militants' movements and hamper their ability to fire rockets and mortars at the U.S.-protected Green Zone.

The militia fighters struck with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns barrages fired from alleys and rooftops, the military said.

As the troops pulled back, one vehicle was hit with two roadside bombs, Stover said. Six American soldiers were wounded.

Stover said 28 militiamen were killed when U.S. forces hit back with rockets

Officials at two local hospitals said about 25 people had died and several dozen were wounded — most civilians. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

Associated Press photos showed men pulling the dust-covered body of a 2-year-old boy, Ali Hussein, from the rubble of one building.

U.S. officials said all precautions are taken to prevent civilian casualties, but blamed the militiamen for taking cover among their neighbors and families.

"The enemy continues to show little regard for innocent civilians, as they fire their weapons from within houses, alleyways and rooftops upon our soldiers," said Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff for the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad.

AP Television News footage showed children running for cover behind blast walls amid gunshots. Men helped carry several blood-soaked injured people onto stretchers to a local emergency hospital. Outside the hospital, the dead were placed inside plain wooden coffins.

Also in Baghdad, a senior government official was killed in a roadside bombing in the north of the city.

Dhia Jodi Jaber, director general at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, was hit by a roadside bomb as he left his home, the ministry's spokesman Abdullah al-Lami said.

Insurgents frequently target governmental officials and institutions in a bid to disrupt the government's work.

Separately, an Iraqi court adjourned until May 20 the trial of Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's best-known lieutenants, and seven other defendants over charges of allegedly ordering the execution of dozens of merchants for profiteering half an hour after it started.

The judge postponed the trial, saying co-defendant Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein's cousin who is known as "Chemical Ali," was too ill to attend.

By David Ivanovich

WASHINGTON — KBR employees working in Iraq stole weapons, artwork and even gold to make spurs for cowboy boots, two former company workers told Senate Democrats on Monday.

Appearing before a Democrats-only panel looking into allegations of contracting abuses in Iraq, the witnesses accused their former co-workers of widespread improper activity.

KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne said the company would not comment at length because the claims are part of ongoing lawsuits.

"The witnesses who testified today raised claims that KBR has previously addressed. The government has reviewed the claims and refused to join lawsuits asserting them," Browne said.

Linda Warren, a 50-year-old Abilene woman who worked as a laundry foreman and recreation director for the Houston-based contracting giant in Iraq, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee Monday that some of her American colleagues doing construction work in Iraqi palaces and municipal buildings took woodcarvings, tapestries and crystal "and even melted down gold to make spurs for cowboy boots."

Her allegations could not be independently verified.

Warren leveled her allegations in early 2004 after being reprimanded by a supervisor for giving water to Iraqi workers laboring in a sweltering laundry building when their own water supply was undrinkable.

Warren said the supervisor reminded her she had signed a confidentiality agreement and then threatened her by suggesting an American woman "wouldn't last very long on the streets of Baghdad."

That evening, with company managers present, she called KBR's ethics hot line in Houston to report her allegations.

She eventually was escorted out of Baghdad by company security after KBR officials intercepted a threatening e-mail, Warren said.

Frank Cassaday, a former KBR ice plant operator, told lawmakers that a KBR foreman tried to take military equipment, including two rocket launchers, detonators and ammunition.

When he confronted the foreman, Cassaday said, "he told me to mind my own business."

Cassaday then told the camp manager. A military investigation confirmed his allegations, Cassaday said, but he did not elaborate on how the matter was resolved.

A third worker, Barry Halley, a former security manager for CAPE Environmental Management, alleged that after raising complaints with CAPE management, he was held in a room for several days by private security guards.

Les Flynn, Atlanta-based CAPE's chief operating officer, said that while some of Halley's allegations Monday were new, the company's insurance company had investigated his allegations.

"It appears they were found to be untrue," Flynn said.

The witnesses appeared at the Democratic Policy Committee's 13th hearing on contracting activities in Iraq. While Congress has had some bipartisan hearings regarding KBR, many of the allegations have come from this series of Democrats-only sessions.

Congressional investigations of KBR's activities in Iraq are almost invariably colored by politics, in no small part because Vice President Dick Cheney once headed KBR's former parent company, Halliburton Co.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Army Sustainment Command reaffirmed its selection of KBR to participate in the 10-year logistical support contract valued at up to $150 billion.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 419

By David Stringer

Ration cards. Genetically modified crops. The end of pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap supermarkets.

These possible solutions to the first global food crisis since World War II — which the World Food Program says already threatens 20 million of the poorest children — are complex and controversial. And they may not even solve the problem as demand continues to soar.

A "silent tsunami" of hunger is sweeping the world's most desperate nations, said Josette Sheeran, the WFP's executive director, speaking Tuesday at a London summit on the crisis.

The skyrocketing cost of food staples, stoked by rising fuel prices, unpredictable weather and demand from India and China, has already sparked sometimes violent protests across the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.

The price of rice has more than doubled in the last five weeks, she said. The World Bank estimates food prices have risen by 83 percent in three years.

"What we are seeing now is affecting more people on every continent," Sheeran told a news conference.

Hosting talks with Sheeran, lawmakers and experts, British Prime Gordon Brown said the spiraling prices threaten to plunge millions back into poverty and reverse progress on alleviating misery in the developing world.

"Tackling hunger is a moral challenge to each of us and it is also a threat to the political and economic stability of nations," Brown said.

Malaysia's embattled prime minister is already under pressure over the price increases and has launched a major rice-growing project. Indonesia's government needed to revise its annual budget to respond.

Unrest over the food crisis has led to deaths in Cameroon and Haiti, cost Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis his job, and caused hungry textile workers to clash with police in Bangladesh.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said more protests in other developing nations appear likely. "We are going through a very serious crisis and we are going to see lots of food strikes and demonstrations," Annan told reporters in Geneva.

At streetside restaurants in Lome, Togo, even the traditional balls of corn meal or corn dough served with vegetable soup are shrinking. Once as big as a boxer's fist, the dumplings are now the size of a tennis ball — but cost twice as much.

In Yaounde, Cameroon, civil servant Samuel Ebwelle, 51, said he fears food prices will rise further.

"We are getting to the worst period of our life," he said. "We've had to reduce the number of meals we take a day from three to two. Breakfast no longer exists on our menu."

Even if her call for $500 million in emergency funding is met, food aid programs — including work to feed 20 million poor children — will be hit this year, Sheeran said.

President Bush has released $200 million in urgent aid. Britain pledged an immediate $59.7 million on Tuesday.

Even so, school feeding projects in Kenya and Cambodia have been scaled back and food aid has been cut in half in Tajikistan, Sheeran said.

Yet while angry street protesters call for immediate action, long term solutions are likely to be slow, costly and complicated, experts warn.

And evolving diets among burgeoning middle classes in India and China will help double the demand for food — particularly grain intensive meat and dairy products — by 2030, the World Bank says.

Robert Zoellick, the bank's head, claims as many as 100 million people could be forced deeper into poverty. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said rising food costs threaten to cancel strides made toward the goal of cutting world poverty in half by 2015.

"Now is not too soon to be thinking about the longer-term solutions," said Alex Evans, a former adviser to Britain's Environment Secretary Hilary Benn.

He said world leaders must help increase food production, rethink their push on biofuels — which many blame for pushing up food prices — and consider anew the once taboo topic of growing genetically modified crops.

But Evans, now a visiting fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation, said increasing the amount of land that can be farmed in the developing world will be arduous.

"It's almost like new oil or gas fields; they'll tend to be the hardest to reach places, that need new roads and new infrastructure to be viable," he said.

The will to increase food production exists, as does most of the necessary skills, but there are major obstacles, including a lack of government investment in agriculture and — in Africa particularly — a scarcity of fertilizers, good irrigation and access to markets.

"Many African farmers are very entrepreneurial, but they simply aren't connected to markets," said Lawrence Haddad, an economist and director of Britain's Institute of Development Studies. "They find there are no chilling plants for milk and no grinding mills for coffee."

Haddad said the likely impact of food price increases should have been anticipated. "The fact no one has previously made the link between agriculture and poverty is quite incredible," he said.

Just as new land for farming is available in Russia and Brazil, new genetically modified crops resistant to drought, or which deliver additional nutrients, could be better targeted to different regions of the developing world, Evans said.

"The solutions are more nuanced than we previously thought," he added.

Sheeran said developing world governments, particularly in Africa, will need to dedicate at least 10 percent of future budgets to agriculture to boost global production.

Some experts predict other countries could follow the example of Pakistan, which has revived the use of ration cards for subsidized wheat.

The production of biofuels also needs to be urgently re-examined, Brown said.

He acknowledged that Britain this month introduced targets aimed at producing 5 percent of transport fuel from biofuels by 2010, but said his government and others should review their policies.

Production of biofuel leads to the destruction of forests and takes up land available to grow crops for food.

Brown said the impact of the food crisis won't just be felt in the developing world, but also in the checkout lane of Western supermarkets. "It it is not surprising that we see our shopping bills go up," Brown said.

Many analysts, including Britain's opposition leader David Cameron, claim that people in the West will need to eat less meat — and consume, or waste, less food in general. Some expect the shift in attitudes to herald the end of supermarket giveaways and cost-cutting grocery stores that stack goods to the ceiling and sell in bulk.

Citizens in the West, China and India must realize that the meat on their plate and biofuels in their expensive cars carry a cost for those in the developing world, Evans said.

Sheeran believes many already understand the impact. "Much of the world is waking up to the fact that food does not spontaneously appear on grocery store shelves," she said.












TIMES ONLINE

Jason Washburn, 28, grew up in San Diego, California. He always wanted to do something to make a difference, and he enlisted in the US marines in December 2001. He wasn’t itching to go into combat, but he wanted the training.

He fought in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 where, he says, he met little resistance. Most people were surrendering.

“There were massive amounts of artillery strikes before we even invaded. We saw the results of that. Streets full of bodies – women and children – body parts, extremely indiscriminate. I’m talking about rolling through villages here, not military encampments.”

He was told there was a military structure in one village. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t see any army uniforms. Or weapons. All I saw were civilians.”

Washburn speaks slowly and with obvious discomfort. This was his introduction to Iraq.

“I still believed everything we were force-fed: weapons of mass destruction and possibly even a nuclear weapon. We felt, like, we’re going to go in, overthrow this evil dictator and give these people some peace, finally. We thought we were doing a good thing.”

Over the course of his three tours, there were more home raids than Washburn can remember. He explains how it worked. “Usually it was based on a tip – we’re told someone in the home is an insurgent. We would pick up people who had nothing to do with anything, keep them locked up until they came up with something.”

He is glad that he didn’t witness some of the techniques used to get them to talk. “That’s not something I want on my conscience.”

It was not a scientific process. Most tips came from people with personal grudges. Washburn and his platoon would kick down the doors in the middle of the night. He was warned not to be complacent. There could be weapons in the children’s beds. In all of the home raids, too many to count, he never found children with weapons. They would take the father away and they never knew what would happen after that.

By the time Washburn served in Haditha he was on his third combat tour. He was there on November 19, 2005, the day of the massacre when 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed, including women and children.

“My squad was doing medivacs out of the town. I was not there to witness the shooting, but I know many marines who were.”

It was a squad in his unit that went on the rampage after their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED).

“I have a lot of feelings about this incident. A friend of mine from my first two tours was in that squad. He was the guy they gave immunity to to testify against the squad leader.

“The people on the ground are looking at serious prison time. Like life. The people who were giving orders were only relieved of command. And I don’t think that’s right.”

Washburn says Haditha was not an isolated incident. “It’s the one that just happened to be uncovered.”

The establishment view is that war is hell and terrible things happen for the greater good. That killing is necessary. That there are those individuals acting on their own who will always smear the honourable actions of the military – men like Washburn, traumatised by war, who are emotional casualties whose testimony is to be mistrusted. Some regard him and the Winter Soldiers of 2008 as traitors for daring to question their commanders and for prosecution of the war.

But there are too many like Washburn to shout down. Many of the orders that combat soldiers were given were not written – but they were understood. At the Winter Soldier event, veterans’ stories will be corroborated by other veterans; backed up by the volume of testifiers who have witnessed the same things – in different units, years apart and in different countries.

There will be up to 100 veterans and, at present, 80 of them have submitted testimonies. Most will be enlisted men and women: privates and sergeants. They have been made aware of the consequences of taking part. Not just that they are likely to be denounced by their fellow veterans, but the psychological and perhaps legal consequences they may face by admitting to witnessing, or even perpetrating, war crimes. The National Lawyers Guild, an organization of civil-rights attorneys, has volunteered to offer advice. Mental-health professionals will also be on hand to offer counseling. Organizers stress that the goal is to hold the policy makers accountable, not their immediate commanding officers. Nobody is permitted to name anyone below the rank of captain.

After the hearings, all the testimonies will be entered into the congressional record. There will be a live video stream on the web. There will also be panels of journalists and scholars to provide context and history.

Perry O’ Brien, who served as a medic in Afghanistan in 2003, is one of the Winter Soldiers on the verification team, which will ensure the testimonies are watertight, lest falsehood undermine the message. The order that O’Brien’s team is hearing most from the testifiers is the “shovel order”.

“Anyone carrying a shovel or any sort of implement that could be used to bury an IED could be considered a target,” he says. “After dark, you can shoot anyone who is outside. Or anyone who puts anything on the side of the road can be considered a target. You won’t find it in writing, but it’s an order indicated to soldiers.”

If not in writing, how can it be proven? “If we have enough soldiers testifying, it will be.”

Washburn says the most dangerous job in Iraq “has to be a taxi driver”. He tells two stories of taxi drivers being shot, both innocent victims. One driver was deaf and didn’t hear the command to halt. The other was at a checkpoint in the Haditha area.

“It was the mayor of one of the towns who was driving, and he was shot and killed. They found out after they shot him. My squad had to apologise to the family. We paid reparations. I don’t know the exact amount. But let’s see: money or a dead husband and father and mayor? People weren’t happy about that.”

During Washburn’s first Iraq deployment in 2003, his unit was told to capture a “rabble rouser”. “We kick down the door and all we find are a few women holding babies and a couple of kids. We were ordered to take the babies away and put sandbags on the women’s heads, tie their hands behind their backs, put them on their knees facing the wall.

Here I am zip-tying these women, and my buddy is standing next to me holding these babies asking what do I do with these kids? We stood there, like, oh shit, what do we do? The squad leader came in and shouted, ‘Everybody is bagged and tagged – everybody!’ So we did it.” The babies were put down on the floor. After a few hours everyone was untied.

Inappropriate and immoral actions weren’t just aimed at Iraqi civilians. There was frequent hazing – the mistreatment of soldiers by their comrades. Some were exercises in pure humiliation, common in most military units, like singing I’m a Little Teapot while others stand around laughing. But some were brutal physical punishments, such as callisthenics in a sleeping bag with a gas mask on in scorching heat.

“It’s one thing to do 20 push-ups. It’s another to burn us to the point of exhaustion in combat theatre. There were guys that tried to speak out about it and that made it worse. That would get punished more.”

The futility of speaking out was bolstered by knowledge that complaints would get as far as the commanding officer of the company and no further. “They kept everything in-house.”

Another incident he describes was a step beyond hazing. He and another marine had had a disagreement. The punishment was that they were tied together – and sent out on patrol.

“Outside of the camp, in a war zone tied together, patrolling? Insane,” he says.

Washburn’s anger comes from a feeling of betrayal. “I thought I was signing up to do something honorable.

“What happened at Abu Ghraib,” Washburn says, “is those orders came from the top. If the policy makers and the commanders can dehumanise their own troops, why wouldn’t they dehumanize the Iraqi people?”

WASHINGTON (April 23, 2008) — An investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency released today found that 889 of nearly 1,600 staff scientists reported that they experienced political interference in their work over the last five years. The study, by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), follows previous UCS investigations of the Food and Drug Administration, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and climate scientists at seven federal agencies, which also found significant administration manipulation of federal science.

"Our investigation found an agency in crisis," said Francesca Grifo, director of UCS's Scientific Integrity Program.

"Nearly 900 EPA scientists reported political interference in their scientific work. That's 900 too many. Distorting science to accommodate a narrow political agenda threatens our environment, our health, and our democracy itself."

The UCS report comes amidst a flurry of controversial activity swirling around the EPA. Congress is currently investigating administration interference in a new chemical toxicity review process as well as California's request to regulate tailpipe emissions. And in early May, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is expected to hold a hearing into political interference in the new EPA ground-level ozone pollution standard.

Today's UCS investigation included dozens of interviews with current and former EPA staff members, analysis of government documents, and a questionnaire sent to 5,419 EPA scientists by Iowa State University's Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology. The questionnaire generated responses from 1,586 scientists, but not all of the respondents answered every question.

Among the UCS report's top findings:

– 889 scientists (60 percent) said they had personally experienced at least one instance of political interference in their work over the last five years.

– 394 scientists (31 percent) personally experienced frequent or occasional "statements by EPA officials that misrepresent scientists' findings."

– 285 scientists (22 percent) said they frequently or occasionally personally experienced "selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome."

– 224 scientists (17 percent) said they had been "directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from an EPA scientific document."

– Of the 969 agency veterans with more than 10 years of EPA experience, 409 scientists (43 percent) said interference has occurred more often in the past five years than in the previous five-year period. Only 43 scientists (4 percent) said interference occurred less often.

– Hundreds of scientists reported being unable to openly express concerns about the EPA's work without fear of retaliation; 492 (31 percent) felt they could not speak candidly within the agency and 382 (24 percent) felt they could not do so outside the agency.

UCS's investigation revealed political interference is most pronounced in offices where scientists write regulations and at the National Center for Environmental Assessment, where scientists conduct risk assessments that could lead to strengthened regulations.

"The investigation shows researchers are generally continuing to do their work," said Dr. Grifo. "But their scientific findings are tossed aside when it comes time to write regulations."

Nearly 100 scientists identified the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as the primary culprit. In scientists' responses to an essay question, "How could the integrity of scientific work produced by the EPA best be improved?," OMB took center stage:

– "Currently, OMB is allowed to force or make changes as they want, and rules are held hostage until this happens," said a scientist at the agency's Office of Air and Radiation. "OMB's power needs to be checked as time after time they weaken rulemakings and policy decisions to favor industry."

– "OMB and the White House have, in some cases, compromised the integrity of EPA rules and policies; their influence, largely hidden from the public and driven by industry lobbying, has decreased the stringency of proposed regulations for non-scientific, political reasons," said a scientist from one of the agency's regional offices. "Because the real reasons can't be stated, the regulations contain a scientific rationale with little or no merit."

– "They [OMB] … have inappropriately stopped agency work that has been in progress for years due to their lack of scientific understanding," said a scientist at the agency's Office of Research and Development.

The UCS investigation also revealed that EPA scientists cannot freely communicate their findings to the media, public or colleagues. Seven-hundred-eighty-three respondents (51 percent) said EPA policies do not let scientists speak freely to the news media about their findings. Scientists also shared anecdotes about being barred from presenting their research at conferences and their difficulties clearing research publication articles with EPA managers.

"Scientific integrity is the bedrock on which the federal science establishment must rest," said Bill Hirzy, an EPA senior scientist and senior vice president of the National Treasury Employees Union, Chapter 280, the union that represents EPA scientists. "Too many EPA scientists have had to fight interference from political or private sector interests and fear retaliation for speaking out."

Previous UCS investigations of other federal agencies show that the problem of political interference is not unique to the EPA. These investigations recently prompted a group of prominent scientists — organized by UCS — to call on the next president and Congress to strengthen protections for all federal scientists. The statement urges them to ensure that federal scientists have the freedom to publicly communicate their findings; publish their work; disclose misrepresentation, censorship or other abuses; and have their technical work evaluated by peers — all without fear of retribution.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 418

LA Times Wire Services

Chevron CEO's 2007 pay up 19%

Chevron Corp. raised Chief Executive David O'Reilly's compensation by 19% last year to $15.74 million after record oil prices lifted annual profit to an all-time high.

O'Reilly's salary rose 1.9% to $1.65 million, the San Ramon, Calif., company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. His bonus climbed 2.9% to $3.6 million.














By Edmund L. Andrews
WASHINGTON — Hoping to avoid a systemic meltdown in financial markets, the Federal Reserve on Sunday approved a $30 billion credit line to engineer the takeover of Bear Stearns and announced an open-ended lending program for the biggest investment firms on Wall Street.

In a third move aimed at helping banks and thrifts, the Fed also lowered the rate for borrowing from its so-called discount window by a quarter of a percentage point, to 3.25 percent.

The moves amounted to a sweeping and apparently unprecedented attempt by the Federal Reserve to rescue the nation’s financial markets from what officials feared could be a chain reaction of defaults.

After a weekend of intense negotiations, the Federal Reserve approved a $30 billion credit line to help JPMorgan Chase acquire Bear Stearns, one of the biggest firms on Wall Street, which had been teetering near collapse because of its deepening losses in the mortgage market.

In a highly unusual maneuver, Fed officials said they would secure the loan by effectively taking over the huge Bear Stearns portfolio and exercising control over all major decisions in order to minimize the central bank’s own risk.

On Monday, President Bush said the Fed “has moved quickly to bring order to the financial markets” by taking “strong and decisive action.”

The Fed, working closely with bank regulators and the Treasury Department, raced to complete the deal Sunday night in order to prevent investors from panicking on Monday about the ability of Bear Stearns to make good on billions of dollars in trading commitments.

Even so, the markets were roiled in both Asia and Europe, with declines of around 4 percent on several major exchanges. On Wall Street, stocks recovered early losses but the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index closed down almost 1 percent.

In a potentially even bigger move, the Federal Reserve also announced its biggest commitment yet to lend money to struggling investment banks. The central bank said its new lending program would make money available to the 20 large investment banks that serve as “primary dealers” and trade Treasury securities directly with the Fed.

Much like a $200 billion loan program the Fed announced last Tuesday, this program will essentially allow the government to hold as collateral a wide variety of investments that include hard-to-sell securities backed by mortgages. But Fed officials told reporters on Sunday night that the new program would have no limit on the amount of money that can be borrowed.

In a conference call with reporters on Sunday, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said the central bank was moving to provide money to financial institutions that need it.

“The Federal Reserve, in close consultation with the Treasury, is working to promote liquid, well-functioning financial markets, which are essential for economic growth,” he said. “These steps will provide financial institutions with greater assurance of access to funds.”

On Monday, the Bank of England also moved to ease bank lending, making available $10 billion in three-day loans.

In his comments Monday morning, President Bush praised Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. for his role in the Bear rescue, saying, “You’ve shown the country and the world that the United States is on top of the situation.”

Affirming that “our financial institutions are strong and that our capital markets are functioning efficiently and effectively,” Mr. Bush added: “In the long run, our economy is going to be fine. Right now we’re dealing with a difficult situation.”

Mr. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, vigorously endorsed the Fed’s rescue efforts on Sunday and made it clear he was much less worried about the “moral hazard” of bailing out a Wall Street firm than he was about a chain reaction of defaults if Bear Stearns were to abruptly collapse.

“The right decision here, I am convinced, was the decision that the Fed made, which was to do things, work with market participants to minimize the disruptions,” Mr. Paulson said on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” on ABC.

It was unclear just how much risk the Federal Reserve was taking on, especially in the bailout of Bear Stearns. But analysts said it was clear that JPMorgan Chase was getting an extraordinary bargain, buying Bear Stearns at a tiny fraction of its market value just one week ago, and with the Fed shielding it from much of the risk.

Fed officials said they would take control of the investment holdings of Bear Stearns in order to maximize their value and minimize disruptions as a result of a cash squeeze. Without providing details, Fed officials insisted that the $30 billion loan was covered by even the most conservative estimates of the Bear Stearns holdings.

By Maggie Shiels

US veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are suing the government, claiming inadequate care is leading to an increase in suicides.

A San Francisco court will hear the class action lawsuit against the Department of Veteran Affairs.

The veterans say the department has been unable to deal with the growing incidence of depression and suicides.

But government lawyers argue the department has been devoting more resources to mental health.

In court papers the two non-profit groups representing the veterans write "that failure to provide care is manifesting itself in an epidemic of suicides".

"The bottom line is that we're not taking care of the veterans and we need to change that," says lead lawyer, Gordon Erspamer.

Raft of complaints

An average of 18 war veterans kill themselves each day - five of them under Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) care - according to a December e-mail between top department officials that has been filed as part of the federal lawsuit.

The Rand Corporation has recently released a study that shows some 300,000 US troops - about 20% of those deployed - are suffering from depression, or post traumatic stress disorder, after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"We find that the VA has simply not devoted enough resources. They don't have enough psychiatrists," said Mr Erspamer.

In 2006 suicide rates were reported to be the highest in 26 years, at 99 confirmed suicides.

The two organizations involved in the legal action are asking US District Court Judge Samuel Conti, a World War II army veteran, to order the VA to overhaul its system drastically.

"What I would like to see from the VA is that they actually treat patients with respect," says Bob Handy, the head of Veterans United for Truth, one of the bodies suing the agency.

Mr Handy formed the group after hearing a raft of complaints from veterans about their treatment, when he was a member of the Veterans Caucus of the state Democratic Party.

More professionals

Government lawyers say the VA has been making mental health and suicide prevention a top priority.

In court filings, the VA states that for 2008, $3.8b will be spent on mental health.

Also, more than 3,700 new mental health professionals have been hired in the past two-and-a-half years, bringing the total to just under 17,000.

The VA's lawyers have filed papers arguing that the courts have no jurisdiction to tell the VA how to operate, and no business wading into the everyday management of a network that includes 153 medical centers nationwide.

The case will be heard without a jury and is expected to last about two weeks.

Plaintiffs are hoping the judge will order broad changes in the administration of veterans' benefits, or perhaps even appoint an outside administrator to oversee changes.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXIV No. 417

By William Dietrich

We have used Puget Sound as a dumping ground for 150 years, and the bill has come due. Up to 70 percent of all the original estuaries and wetlands are gone, filled, paved and farmed. A third of the original eel-grass beds are gone.

About 8,700 acres of the bottom are highly contaminated and tens of thousands more are moderately contaminated, the state says. Of 165,000 acres of shellfish harvest area, 28,000 are closed because of pollution.

We deposit a billion gallons of treated wastewater, and hundreds of thousands of pounds of chemical waste, into the Sound each year. We extract 250 billion gallons of fresh water for our own use that otherwise would flow directly through streams and aquifers to renew the Sound.

The result is shocking. While hatcheries have sustained enough of a fishery to allow us to deny reality (about 85 percent of the fish caught in the Sound now are by sportsmen since commercial numbers have collapsed), the hard truth is that wild salmon populations are only at about 8 percent of their historical number. And seabirds? Down by 47 percent in just the last 20 years.

What in the name of Peter Puget is going on?

People, of course.

THE POPULATION OF the Puget Sound basin has doubled since 1960 to 4 million, and we're projected to grow to about 5.5 million by 2025. Never before has nature been asked to absorb this many people, this quickly. An example: Between 1991 and 2001, 190 square miles of Puget Sound basin forest were converted to housing and stores.

We also know what flows downhill. Puget Sound is our chemical toilet, and we hope it all sinks out of sight. Except it doesn't. Collapsing species tell us what's going on. Puget Sound chinook salmon have five to 17 times the PCB concentration of other West Coast chinook, the state says. Harbor-seal pups have seven times more PCBs here than those in Georgia Strait.

Puget Sound is just plain too dirty. In the summer of 2005, the state reports, 24 of 65 monitored beaches violated water-quality standards for bacteria at least once. We pollute, we destroy critical habitat, and we're even changing the climate. Air temperatures in the basin are up nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit on average the last 100 years, twice the global rate. Water temperatures at Race Rocks, near Victoria, are also up nearly 2 degrees on average, just since 1950.













By Ken Bensinger

Some folks celebrate their last home mortgage payment by setting fire to their loan agreement. Lately, some people behind on their mortgages are simply setting fire to their homes.

In what appears to be the latest symptom of the nation's mortgage meltdown and credit crisis, insurers, law enforcement officials and state agencies nationwide report a jump in home and automobile fires in the last year believed to have been set by owners unable to pay their debts. The numbers are small, but they're leading the insurance industry to scrutinize more closely what seem to be accidental blazes.

"We've seen a dramatic increase in this kind of fraud," said Dan Bales, director of fraud investigations at Mercury Insurance. "People upside-down on their house with variable-interest-rate loans, or upside-down on their cars, are pretty quick to burn their property right now."

Last week, a Sacramento-area couple were arrested on allegations that they burned their Jeep and drove their Nissan pickup into a river, then filed fraudulent insurance claims. According to investigators, the wife admitted she was trying to escape her $600 monthly car payment.

On April 1, police arrested a woman in Easley, S.C., accused of deliberately setting fire to her home just three days after the bank hung a foreclosure notice on her door. And in January, an Omaha man was arrested on suspicion of arranging to have his three-bedroom house burned down as he was facing foreclosure.

The fires are keeping fraud investigators such as Anne Luce occupied.

"I'm busier now than a one-armed paper hanger," said Luce, who works on auto cases for the special investigations unit at Bristol West Insurance, part of Farmers Insurance Group. "What is happening is terrifically economically driven."

These financially motivated fires are surprising some officials because they come after a decade-long decline in overall arson rates nationwide. Few state or federal agencies categorize arson in terms of the financial status of liens on the property, making nationwide figures elusive. Still, pockets of the country are showing a significant increase.

Insurers referred 14 cases of questionable home fires, with foreclosure as a possible factor, to the California Department of Insurance last year, up from seven in 2006 and two in 2005. In the same three-year period, reports of auto arson increased by a third, to 343 cases last year. On Friday, the Department of Insurance announced the arrests of seven people in two investigations of possible automobile arson and insurance fraud.

In Ohio, the total number of reported "auto owner give-ups" -- insurance jargon for fraudulent car fires and staged car thefts -- rose 150% from 2005 to 2007, to 245 cases last year.

Insurers say they're meeting this month with California investigators to discuss potential fraud during last fall's wildfires -- including the prospect that some of the 2,000 burned homes were in fact cases of opportune arson by owners. State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner acknowledged that his agency was investigating a number of such cases but would not provide further details.

One recent fire of note was set in September in Gaines Township, Mich., by Sheryl Christman, who hoped to use the insurance money to get out of a troubled marriage, not to mention a house that was four days from being seized by the bank.

The 38-year-old mother ignited a mattress in the garage of her two-bedroom home, for which she had paid $150,000 in 2006, then sat outside as the house burned. She was ultimately arrested, convicted and sentenced to 1,000 hours of community service and five years of probation. In interviews afterward, Christman called her actions "rash and stupid" and said she was "very ashamed." The gutted house was eventually sold for $40,000.

Arson of all kinds has been on the decline for years. According to the FBI, total cases of arson fell 9.7% in the first six months of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006, and U.S. Fire Administration statistics show that arson declined by 60% from 1997 to 2007.

















By Hope Yen
WASHINGTON (April 9) - Federal employees charged millions of dollars for Internet dating, tailor-made suits, lingerie, lavish dinners and other questionable expenses to their government credit cards over a 15-month period, congressional auditors say.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, examined spending controls across the federal government following reports of credit-card abuse at departments including Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.

The review of card spending at more than a dozen departments from 2005 to 2006 found that nearly 41 percent of roughly $14 billion in credit-card purchases, whether legitimate or questionable, did not follow procedure - either because they were not properly authorized or they had not been signed for by an independent third party as called for in federal rules to deter fraud.

For purchases over $2,500, nearly half - or 48 percent - were unauthorized or improperly received.

Out of a sample of purchases totaling $2.7 million, the government could not account for hundreds of laptop computers, iPods and digital cameras worth more than $1.8 million. In one case, the U.S. Army could not say what happened to computer items making up 16 server configurations, each of which cost nearly $100,000.

Agencies often could not provide the required paperwork to justify questionable purchases. Investigators also found that federal employees sometimes double-billed or improperly expensed lavish meals and Internet dating for many months without question from supervisors; the charges were often noticed only after auditors or whistle-blowers raised questions.

"Breakdowns in internal controls over the use of purchase cards leave the government highly vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse," investigators wrote, calling the governmentwide failure rate in enforcing controls "unacceptably high."

"This audit demonstrates that continued vigilance over purchase card use is necessary," the 57-page report stated.

The report calls for the General Services Administration and Office of Management and Budget, both of which help administer the government's credit-card program, to set guidance to improve accounting for purchased items, particularly Palm Pilots, iPods and other electronic equipment that could be easily stolen.

OMB and GSA were also urged to tighten controls over convenience checks, which are a part of the credit-card program, and to remind federal employees that they will be held responsible for any items if the purchases are later deemed improper.

In response, both OMB and GSA agreed with portions of the report. But GSA administrator Lurita Doan noted the vast majority of federal employees use their cards properly and that many oversight measures already are in place. She acknowledged there is room for improvement but added that by using purchase cards the federal government saves about $1.8 billion in administrative costs each year.

"We agree that no level of abuse or misuse is acceptable," Doan wrote.

The GAO study comes amid increasing scrutiny of purchase cards, which are used by 300,000 federal employees and are directly payable by the U.S. government.

The AP reported Sunday that VA employees last year racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in government credit-card bills at casino and luxury hotels, movie theaters and high-end retailers such as Sharper Image. Government auditors have been investigating these and similar charges, citing past spending abuses.

In Tuesday's report, investigators did not seek to determine the extent of fraud or waste at each agency. They cited numerous cases of questionable spending, which they said represented what could be found government-wide, including the VA.

"The purchase card is a useful tool for the government, and in no way are we suggesting it shouldn't continue to be used widely," said Gregory D. Kutz, GAO's managing director of forensic audits and special investigations, in a telephone interview. "However, I would say these cases once again show that lack of internal controls cost taxpayers millions of dollars and thus continued focus is needed on improving these controls."

Among the expenditures cited in the report:

An Agriculture Department employee fraudulently wrote 180 convenience checks for more than $642,000 to a live-in boyfriend over a six-year period. The money was used for gambling, car and mortgage payments, dinners and retail purchases that went unnoticed until USDA's inspector general received a tip from a whistle-blower. The employee, who pleaded guilty to embezzlement and tax fraud charges, was sentenced last year to 21 months in prison and ordered to repay the money.

U.S. Postal Service workers separately billed more than $14,000 to government credit cards for Internet dating services and a dinner at a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Orlando, Fla., for 81 people at a cost of $160 each for steaks and crab. The dinner bill also included more than 200 appetizers and more than $3,000 worth of wine and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnny Walker Gold.

In the Internet dating case, a postmaster charged $1,100 over 15 months for two online services, including the Ashley Madison Agency. The expenses went unnoticed for more than a year even though he was under internal investigation for viewing pornography on a government computer. The postmaster was eventually told to repay the Internet charges but faced no disciplinary action.

At the Pentagon, four employees purchased $77,700 in clothing and accessories at high-end clothing and sporting goods stores. The spending included more than $45,000 at Brooks Brothers and similar stores for tailor-made suits - $7,000 of which were purchased a week before Christmas. The credit-card holders said the items were for service members working at U.S. embassies with civilian attire. Pentagon rules allow purchases of civilian clothing when performing official duty, but generally only up to $860 per person.

Justice Department and FBI employees charged $11,000 at a Ritz Carlton hotel for coffee and "light" refreshments for 50 to 70 attendees for four days, averaging about $50 per person. Seventy percent of the total conference cost of $15,000 was for the food and beverages, while audiovisual and other support services totaled only about $4,000, or 30 percent of the charges. It was not clear what action, if any, that Justice took in light of the conference expenses, which GAO deemed excessive.

At the State Department, one credit-card holder bought $360 worth of women's lingerie at Seduccion Boutique for use during jungle training by trainees of a drug enforcement program in Ecuador. One State Department official later agreed that the charge was questionable and stated that he would not have approved the purchase had he known about it.

"Too many government employees have viewed purchase cards as their personal line of credit," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations, which requested the GAO report. "When money that was intended to pay for critical infrastructure, education and homeland security is instead being spent on iPods, lingerie and socializing, we must immediately remedy the problem."

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who chairs the investigations subcommittee, agreed. "Although internal controls over government credit cards have improved, we still have a long way to go to stop the fraudulent use of these cards," he said.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 416

(CNN) -- Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday.

"This is the world's big story," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute.

"The finance ministers were in shock, almost in panic this weekend," he said on CNN's "American Morning," in a reference to top economic officials who gathered in Washington. "There are riots all over the world in the poor countries ... and, of course, our own poor are feeling it in the United States."

World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty.

"While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day," Zoellick said late last week in a speech opening meetings with finance ministers.

"The international community must fill the at least $500 million food gap identified by the U.N.'s World Food Programme to meet emergency needs," he said. "Governments should be able to come up with this assistance and come up with it now."

The World Bank announced a $10 million grant from the United States for Haiti to help the government assist poor families.

"In just two months," Zoellick said in his speech, "rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice ... now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family."

The price of wheat has jumped 120 percent in the past year, he said -- meaning that the price of a loaf of bread has more than doubled in places where the poor spend as much as 75 percent of their income on food.

"This is not just about meals forgone today or about increasing social unrest. This is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth," Zoellick said.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, also spoke at the joint IMF-World Bank spring meeting.

"If food prices go on as they are today, then the consequences on the population in a large set of countries ... will be terrible," he said.

He added that "disruptions may occur in the economic environment ... so that at the end of the day most governments, having done well during the last five or 10 years, will see what they have done totally destroyed, and their legitimacy facing the population destroyed also."

By Ann Scott Tyson

WASHINGTON — About 300,000 U.S. military personnel who survived the bombs and other dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression, a toll that will cost the nation up to $6.2 billion over two years, according to a RAND study released Thursday.

In addition, nearly 20 percent of the 1.64 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, or about 320,000 people, reported a probable traumatic brain injury (TBI) during deployment, the study found, though it said their treatment needs had not been determined.

Taken together, the study shows that nearly 31 percent of those who have served in combat have suffered brain injuries, stress disorders or both.

The economic cost of the PTSD and depression cases — including medical care, forgone productivity and lost lives through suicide — was put at $4 billion to $6 billion over two years.

Meanwhile, the cost incurred by traumatic brain injury, based on all cases diagnosed through June 2007, was estimated at $600 million to $900 million.

The study, "Invisible Wounds of War," said prolonged and repeated exposure to combat stress is causing a disproportionately high psychological toll compared with physical injuries. It warned of "long-term, cascading consequences" for the nation — ranging from a greater likelihood of drug use and suicide to increased marital problems and unemployment — if the mental-health problems are left untreated.

Yet, based on a survey of 1,965 service members included in the study, serious gaps in mental-health care were found. For example, it determined that only 53 percent of service members with PTSD or depression had sought help from a provider in the past year. Of those who sought care, about half received "minimally adequate" treatment.

Some service members avoid seeking help, fearing negative consequences, according to the study. These troops worry about damage to their military careers and relationships with co-workers. "When we asked folks what was limiting them from getting the help that they need, among the top barriers that were reported were really negative career repercussions," said Terri Tanielian, one of the study's authors.

The study suggested two key changes. It suggested ways to allow service members to get mental-health care "off the record" to avoid stigma. And since some soldiers and Marines fear that seeking treatment will prevent their redeployment, the study recommended that fitness-for-duty reports not rely on decisions to seek mental-health care.

Screening techniques for stress disorders are vastly improved from previous wars, making comparisons with Vietnam, Korea or World War II difficult or impossible.

Military officials praised the RAND study Thursday, saying its findings were consistent with their studies and adding that it would reinforce their efforts to try to improve mental-health care. Veterans Affairs officials, while questioning the study's methodology, said their department has intensified efforts to find discharged service members who have mental disorders.

Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, said the study, the first large-scale, private assessment of its kind, would help draw the nation's attention. "They are making this a national debate," Schoomaker said.

Hey, here's a few stories Bill O'Reilly didn't report on today. Vol. CXXXVI No. 415

By Diaa Hadid

The Gaza Strip's four main universities shut down Monday after officials said students couldn't get to class because of critical fuel shortages.

University officials said attendance rates were down by at least 60 percent Monday, prompting the closure. It affects more than 45,000 students and will last until Thursday.

Officials said they would put together an emergency education plan that could include conducting some lectures over the Internet and radio.

"This is a genuine crisis," said Ali al-Najjar, an official from Azhar University, which is affiliated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

The Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip is suffering crushing fuel shortages. Israel is Gaza's sole fuel provider, and in recent months, the Jewish state has reduced supplies to try to pressure Palestinian militants to halt their rocket fire into southern Israel.

Shortages were aggravated recently after Gaza fuel distributors stopped selling the reduced amounts that Israel was providing to protest the cutbacks. Israel then closed its only fuel transfer terminal last week after Palestinian gunmen attacked the site, killing two Israeli workers.

Israel's Defense Ministry released a statement late Monday saying that fuel shipments would resume Wednesday for Gaza City's power plant, but not for vehicles.

Cars lie idle on Gaza streets, and many of the vehicles still running use fuel alternatives: cooking gas, mixtures of vegetable oil, diesel and kerosene.

Hamas has seized on the shortages to play up Palestinian suffering. Many Palestinians in Gaza complain that Hamas is hoarding supplies — something the Islamic militant group denies.

An Israeli security official said the crisis was Hamas "propaganda" and that Hamas could solve the problem by picking up fuel supplies lying idle at the depot.

Hamas has controlled Gaza since June 2007, when its militants routed forces loyal to Abbas, who now heads a Western-backed government based in the West Bank.

Hamas has continued attacking Israeli forces along the border and firing rockets at Israeli towns, and allows Gaza's other militant factions to do the same.

Israel has sent tanks, troops and aircraft into Gaza — killing 16 Palestinians, including at least six civilians, since Wednesday's fuel depot raid.

Bassam Sakka, dean of students at the Hamas-affiliated Islamic University, said the fuel crisis has become steadily worse but plans are in the works to help students.

"The administration will put together an emergency plan to see how we can continue," he said.

Only 40 of al-Najjar's 200 students attended their Islamic law lecture on Monday at Azhar University. He said even where transport was available, prices are too expensive for the poorest students.

A trip from the southern town of Rafah to Gaza City — where universities are located — used to cost $1.70. The same trip now costs between $2.80 to $4. Most of Gaza's 1.4 million residents live on less than $2 a day.

"This is a catastrophe, but a part of it is created here," al-Najjar said.

By Drew DeSilver

When Washington Mutual's shareholders gather at Benaroya Hall on Tuesday, they'll confront a company in full crisis mode.

Seattle-based WaMu, one of the nation's biggest mortgage lenders and consumer bankers, lost money last year for the first time since 1984. Wall Street doesn't expect a return to profitability until sometime next year, if then.

Billions of dollars in tarnished debt sit festering on WaMu's books. The stock is down 71 percent over the past year, thousands of employees have been laid off, and just last week WaMu effectively sold half of itself to an investor group at a bargain-basement price.

WaMu executives, who declined to comment for this story, blame the company's troubles on the rapid unraveling of the U.S. housing boom last year, and investors' subsequent loss of appetite for most mortgage-backed securities. Though they saw the train coming, they say, they couldn't get off the tracks in time.

But interviews with former employees and Wall Street analysts, as well as reviews of internal documents and the company's financial history, suggest WaMu's crisis is largely of its own making.

While the housing and credit meltdowns have been hard on virtually everyone in the mortgage business, decisions made years ago by WaMu's leaders to loosen lending standards and raise the tolerance for risk left the company particularly vulnerable to swings in the housing and credit markets:

• WaMu aggressively stepped up its lending in some of the riskiest loan types: short-term adjustable-rate mortgages, especially so-called "option ARMs"; home-equity loans and lines of credit; and subprime loans. Over the past four years, more than half of all real-estate loans WaMu made were in one of those higher-risk categories.

• WaMu made billions of dollars' worth of loans with only "limited documentation" of the borrowers' income, net worth or credit history. Such loans — often called "liar loans" or "NINJA loans," for "no income, no job or assets" — make up three-quarters of its $58.9 billion option-ARM portfolio.

• Complaints from appraisers and an investigation by New York's attorney general say WaMu leaned on appraisers to inflate property values to support bigger mortgages.

• In August 2004, WaMu loosened its standards for fronting money to third-party mortgage brokers, allowing brokers with heavier debt loads to make more loans.

WaMu, in public statements and investor presentations, stresses it first warned of a housing bubble in mid-2005 and sold billions of dollars' worth of the riskiest mortgages off its books. But it continued to make new higher-risk loans at a fast clip until well into 2007 — when the resale market for them abruptly evaporated.

As a result, at the end of last year more than 56 percent of WaMu's loan portfolio, $138.4 billion, consisted of option ARMs, home-equity loans and subprimes. One analyst estimates that, largely due to such loans, more than $16 billion in future losses are embedded in WaMu's books.

And in 2005, when WaMu decided it needed to diversify beyond the mortgage business, it bought a credit-card company, Providian Financial, that targeted "subprime" customers — those with weaker credit histories. Now, with the economy in or near recession, credit-card defaults also are rising.

WaMu was hardly the only lender to loosen its lending standards during the boom, of course. But for Seattleites, it isn't another mortgage chop-shop like Countrywide Financial or New Century.

It's the 119-year-old thrift that taught generations of Seattle schoolchildren how to save through its "Bank Day" program, the homegrown institution with the folksy attitude whose ads for years featured Ellensburg's "Rodeo Grandmas."

But that's not the face WaMu presented to Wall Street investors. To them, it was a nationwide financial-services powerhouse that aimed its checking accounts, mortgages and other products squarely at Middle America.

"The DNA of the company is to grow," said Richard Bove, veteran banking analyst for Punk, Ziegel & Co. in Florida. "It's always emphasized growth over all other aspects of its business."

When that growth slowed, Bove added, "they had to reach down to a new level of the marketplace. They had to seek out a lower quality of customer than they were used to dealing with."

In the early years of this decade, record-low mortgage rates set off the biggest refinancing boom in U.S. history.

But WaMu, despite being one of the nation's biggest home lenders, struggled to increase profits because of operational missteps — incompatible technologies inherited from numerous acquisitions, a bungled hedging program, and delays in processing loan applications.

In an Oct. 21, 2004, conference call, Chief Executive Kerry Killinger assured analysts and investors WaMu was turning around its lagging mortgage division.

A key initiative, he said, was writing a lot more adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs — especially option ARMs, a relatively new type of loan.

With standard fixed-rate mortgages, the monthly payment is set to pay off both the loan balance and interest within the term of the loan — typically 30 years. With ARMs, as the name suggests, the interest rate on the principal balance resets periodically.

Option ARMs add yet another wrinkle: Each month, borrowers can choose whether to pay down both principal and interest, the interest only, or to make a minimum payment so low that their loan balance actually rises — called "negative amortization" or "neg am."

Option ARMs proved extraordinarily popular during the housing boom. Between April 2004 and the end of 2007, WaMu underwrote $184.8 billion of them, along with $9.5 billion of other short-term ARMs (those in which the rate resets within a year).

All told, short-term ARMs made up nearly a third of all home loans WaMu originated in that period.

The company earned hefty fees for bundling the loans and selling them off to investors; the neg-am feature also swelled WaMu's coffers.