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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (16807)	4/9/2003 7:53:28 PM
From: Victor Lazlo	Respond to of 89467

Just let them send money. See if they send any. The corrupt hypocritical pigs.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (16807)	4/9/2003 9:04:27 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 89467

Rumsfeld: Finding WMDs is key Early tests find no chemical weapons NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES April 9 — Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld indicated Wednesday that weapons of mass destruction in Iraq may have been moved out of the country and delivered into the hands of terrorist networks. RUMSFELD EXPRESSED his concerns in response to questions from reporters about finding and destroying significant caches of weapons of mass destruction believed to have been stockpiled by Saddam Hussein’s regime — the original rationale of the U.S.-led campaign that began March 20. “You bet we’re concerned about it,” Rumsfeld said at a news conference at the Pentagon. “And one of the reasons it’s important is because the nexus between terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction — in this case, chemical and biological and nuclear technologies and knowledge — and terrorist groups and networks is a critical link. And the thought that as part of this process, some of ... those materials could leave the country and [be] in the hands of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect. So it is important to us to see that that doesn’t happen.” “We are in the process of trying to liberate that country,” he said. “And at the moment [when] the war ends and the coalition forces occupy the areas where those capabilities, chemical and biological weapons, are likely to be, to the extent they haven’t been moved out of the country — it obviously is important to find them.” TESTS YIELD NO CHEMICAL AGENTS Rumsfeld spoke a day after U.S. military sources said tests on barrels found in central Iraq did not yield chemical weapons agents, as first suspected. More conclusive testing is still pending. Another suspicious find was also being investigated, while a third report dealing with rockets was discounted by a top U.S. military official. “I’ve seen nothing in official reports that would corroborate that,” Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday. He was referring to earlier news reports that Marines had found rockets, possibly packed with sarin and a mustard agent, at a warehouse outside Baghdad. The barrels were discovered Monday by troops of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division and had been buried at a pesticide plant in Hindiya, 20 miles southeast of Karbala. The barrels initially tested positive for the nerve agents sarin and Tabun, as well as mustard agent, a blistering chemical first used in World War I. NBC’s Dana Lewis said the 15 barrels appeared to have been recently buried in a pit and indicated that troops also found weapons in the pesticide plant, suggesting that it might have been a disguised military facility. He said the troops were led to the site by an Iraqi. Later, more sensitive tests were negative, U.S. military sources officers said Tuesday. BARRELS NEAR NAJAF In a separate find, soldiers with the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne on Tuesday discovered an unknown number of barrels near Najaf, south of Karbala, NBC News reported. Soldiers who opened one barrel experienced nausea, vomiting and a rash. Preliminary testing of the substances was under way. Samples from the sites were being sent to the United States for more definitive tests. If any of the discoveries were confirmed, it would be the first find of chemical weapons during the war. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted Monday that first reports from the battlefield often were incorrect. “We have to take our time and look at it,” Rumsfeld said, adding that getting samples back to the United States and completing testing could take days. EARLIER FALSE ALARMS Earlier reports about possible chemical weapons finds have turned out to be false alarms. Last week, for example, troops searching the Qaa Qaa military complex south of Baghdad found a white powder that was found to be an explosive. Iraq acknowledged making 3,859 tons of sarin, tabun, mustard and other chemical weapons, though United Nations inspectors suspected Iraq could have made much more. Iraq used mustard and sarin against Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and is believed to have used the chemicals against Kurdish Iraqis. Sarin and tabun are related nerve agents that kill when absorbed through the skin or inhaled as a gas. They kill by causing convulsions, paralysis and asphyxiation. Mustard gas begins dissolving tissue on contact and is particularly harmful to eyes and lungs. It does not usually kill, but it causes painful injuries that can linger for a lifetime. Lewisite, another World War I-era creation, acts as a systemic poison, causing pulmonary edema, diarrhea, restlessness, weakness, subnormal temperature and low blood pressure.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (16807)	4/10/2003 1:33:51 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

No New Tax Cuts By BOB KERREY, SAM NUNN, PETER G. PETERSON, ROBERT E. RUBIN, WARREN B. RUDMAN and PAUL A. VOLCKER Editorial The New York Times April 9, 2003 nytimes.com With a war in Iraq and looming postwar costs, growing pressures for a prescription drug benefit, increased expenses for domestic security and a ballooning budget deficit, Congress must exercise restraint on both revenues and spending to prevent fiscal policy from spiraling out of control. The consensus in favor of long-term budget balance must be re-established. This issue is now directly before Congress as it debates the federal budget. The fiscal outlook is much worse than official projections indicate. These projections assume that the tax cuts enacted in 2001 will expire at the end of 2010. They also assume that discretionary spending, the part of the budget that pays for national defense, domestic security, education and transportation, will shrink continuously as a share of the economy. Neither of these assumptions is realistic. Moreover, the official projections do not include the costs of war and reconstruction in Iraq. And they ignore the inevitable need to reform the alternative minimum tax, which is not indexed for inflation and will apply to some 40 million households within 10 years — up from two million today. Under more realistic assumptions, the deficit projections are cause for alarm. A recent study by Goldman Sachs includes this forecast: if the president's proposed new tax cuts are enacted, a Medicare prescription drug benefit is approved, the A.M.T. is adjusted and appropriations grow modestly, the deficits over the next 10 years will total $4.2 trillion — even if the Social Security surplus is included. If it is not included, the deficit would be $6.7 trillion. Under these circumstances, the ratio of publicly held debt to gross domestic product climbs within 10 years to nearly 50 percent, from 33 percent just two years ago. And all of this happens before the fiscal going gets tough. Looming at the end of the decade is a demographic transformation that threatens to swamp the budget and the economy with unfunded benefit promises, like Social Security and Medicare, of roughly $25 trillion in present value. Our children and grandchildren already face unthinkable payroll tax burdens that could go as high as 33 percent to pay for these promised benefits. It is neither fiscally nor morally responsible to give ourselves tax cuts and leave future generations with an even higher tax burden. And yet tax cuts are the primary focus of this year's budget debate. To speed enactment of tax cuts, Congress is planning to use a special fast-track procedure called "reconciliation" in the budget resolution. While determining the size of the tax cut to be given fast-track protection in the budget is sometimes dismissed as a procedural matter, it is not: whatever its size, a tax cut that receives this protection is almost certain to be enacted in the later tax legislation. Members of Congress should not therefore approach the budget decision with the idea that a tax cut given such status now can be easily scaled back later. The president has proposed a cut of $726 billion, which the House has already approved. The Senate has reduced the cut to $350 billion. Given the rapidly deteriorating long-term fiscal outlook, neither proposal is fiscally responsible. It is illogical to begin the journey back toward balanced budgets by enacting a tax cut that will only make the long-term outlook worse. Furthermore, the proposed tax cuts are not useful for short-term fiscal stimulus, since only a small portion would take effect this year. Nor would they spur long-term economic growth. In fact, tax cuts financed by perpetual deficits will eventually slow the economy. The tax cuts now before Congress do not pay for themselves. No plausible array of matching spending cuts or offsetting revenue increases has been, or will be, proposed to close the gap resulting from a large new tax cut. We believe that there should be no new tax cuts beyond those that are likely to provide immediate fiscal stimulus, and that avoid growing revenue loss over time. If, however, Congress decides it must approve a tax cut, it should pass the Senate's. While a $350 billion tax cut does not fit our definition of fiscal responsibility, it comes closer than a tax cut of $726 billion. Moreover, Congress should re-establish the pay-as-you-go rule in which tax cuts and entitlement expansions must be offset. The discipline of this rule greatly contributed to the elimination of budget deficits in the 1990's and is clearly needed again. Congress cannot simply conclude that deficits don't matter. Over the long term, deficits matter a great deal. They lower future economic growth by reducing the level of national savings that can be devoted to productive investments. They raise interest rates higher than they would be otherwise. They raise interest payments on the national debt. They reduce the fiscal flexibility to deal with unexpected developments. If we forget these economic consequences, we risk creating an insupportable tax burden for the next generation. _______________________________________________________ Bob Kerrey, Sam Nunn and Warren B. Rudman are former senators. Peter G. Peterson and Robert E. Rubin are former cabinet secretaries. Paul A. Volcker is former chairman of the Federal Reserve. All are members of the Concord Coalition, a group that focuses on federal budget policy.