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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (485898)	11/3/2003 3:19:37 PM
From: Howard C.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Let's cut some more taxes!

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (485898)	11/3/2003 4:09:57 PM
From: steve dietrich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

I heard a blurb on cnbc that Iraqi police trainers are costing us 400,000 per. Looks like someone is making out well at the taxpayer's expense. Wonder why they don't just set up a special police academy here and bring the Iraqi's in to train them.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (485898)	11/3/2003 5:53:52 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 769670

Iraq War III By WILLIAM SAFIRE ASHINGTON We thought we won the first Iraq war in 100 hours, but lost the peace to Saddam and his Baathist followers. We thought we won the second Iraq war decisively in one week, but Saddam's murdering class and his imported terrorists chose to run and fight from underground. We are now six months into Iraq War III. The coalition is clearly winning on two of the three war fronts. As the team of ABC-TV and Time magazine reporters are persuasively showing this week, the people of Iraq's Shiite south and Kurdish north — 80 percent of the population of 23 million — are making substantial progress toward reconstruction and self-governance. But the battle within the Sunni triangle around Baghdad — where Saddam's rapacious sons and secret police long victimized other Iraqis — is not yet won. One terrorist aim is to increase suffering by driving out the U.N. and Red Cross relief workers. Another is to assassinate Iraqi leaders and police who dare to cooperate with the liberation. The key goal is to kill enough Americans to cause U.S. public opinion to lose heart. Such a retreat before federal democracy takes root would set the stage for an Iraqi civil war. There is no denying that the shooting down of a transport helicopter, killing 16 Americans and wounding 20, was a terrorist victory in Iraq War III. The question is: Will such casualties dishearten the U.S., embolden failuremongers and isolationists on the campaign trail, and cause Americans and our allies to cut and run? Although such a retreat under fire would be euphemized as an "accelerated exit strategy," consider the consequences to U.S. security of premature departure: Set aside the loss of U.S. prestige or America's credibility in dealing with other rogue nations acquiring nuclear weapons. Iraq itself would likely split apart. Shiites in the south would resist a return of repression by Saddam's Sunnis and set up a nation under the protection of Iran. Kurds in the north, fearing the return of Saddamism, would break away into an independent Kurdistan; that would induce Turkey, worried about separatism among its own Kurds, to seize the Iraqi oil fields of Kirkuk. One result could well be a re-Saddamed Sunni triangle. Baghdad would then become the arsenal of terrorism, importer and exporter of nukes, bioweapons and missiles. There is no way we can let that happen. Either we stay in Baghdad until Iraq becomes a unified democratic beacon of freedom to the Arab world — or we pull out too soon, thereby allowing terrorism to establish its main world sanctuary and its agents to come and get us. Our dovish left will say, with Oliver Hardy, "a fine mess you've got us into" — as if we created Saddam's threat, or made our C.I.A. dance to some oily imperialist tune, or would have been better off with our head in the sand. Most Americans, I think, will move past these unending recriminations, reject defeatism and support leaders determined to win the final Iraq war. To catch Saddam or otherwise break up the terror network, we need Iraqi informers to tip us to the plans of the attackers. We should blanket the Sunni triangle with a powerful media message: a return of Baathism would mean a bloody war with the rest of Iraq that the coalition would make certain Saddam's followers lost. Most television sets in the triangle depend for reception on the old rabbit ears, not satellite dishes; the Iraqi Media Network we set up is now operational but runs mainly old movies and canned messages from our Paul Bremer with an Arabic translation. I'm told by programmers in the contractor handling IMN, Science Applications International, that attention-getting Arabic programs produced in the gulf states will begin this month, which should attract many new viewers. But why not supplement Bremer on the air with our secret weapon? John Abizaid, our commanding general, speaks fluent Arabic. He should be on radio and television regularly — the live voice and face of liberation — answering questions from Iraqi reporters in their native language. If Donald Rumsfeld can deliver the message of resolve on TV here, why not Abizaid there? We will help Iraqis win the final war against Baathist terror. Failure is not an option.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (485898)	11/3/2003 5:57:03 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 769670

Congress OKs Iraq, Afghanistan Funding By ALAN FRAM The Associated Press Monday, November 3, 2003; 5:09 PM Congress voted its final approval Monday for $87.5 billion for U.S. military operations and aid in Iraq and Afghanistan. Handing a legislative victory to President Bush a day after Americans in Iraq endured their worst casualties since March, the Senate approved the bill by voice vote, sidestepping the roll call that usually accompanies major legislation. That underscored the complicated political calculus presented by the measure, which was dominated by popular funds for U.S. forces but also sparked questions about Bush's postwar Iraq policies and record budget deficits at home. "As the president said time and time again, we will not walk away from Iraq," said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, a leading author of the bill. "We will not leave the Iraqi people in chaos, and we will not create a vacuum for terrorist groups to fill." In the latest blow to Iraq's U.S. occupiers, 19 American troops were killed there on Sunday. That included 16 who died when a missile brought down a U.S. Army transport helicopter west of Baghdad, a crash in which 21 other Americans were wounded. That shoot-down allowed critics of Bush's leadership of the Iraq war to argue anew that he should have done more to win commitments of troops and resources from other countries. "Every day, when we see these bloody headlines of American soldiers being killed, we are reminded that had this been a global coalition, ... what we're facing today could have been so much different," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. Even so, Durbin and several others who criticized Bush during Monday's debate said they would support the bill as the best way to protect U.S. troops and expedite the day when Americans can leave Iraq. One who said he opposed the bill was Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, top Democrat on the Appropriations panel. In some of the day's strongest words, Byrd called the bill a "monument to failure," citing the lack of help from allies and persistent U.S. casualties. The measure was the second massive package for Iraq and combating terror that Bush has requested and Congress has produced in less than seven months. In April, they enacted a $79 billion package that included $62.4 billion for the war in Iraq, which had just begun, plus other money for Afghanistan, tightened security at home and help for financially ailing U.S. airlines. The House cleared the most recent bill Friday by 298-121. Most of its money is for the federal budget year that runs through Sept. 30, though some of it is for a longer term. Largely following the outlines of an $87 billion package that Bush requested on Sept. 7, the bill includes $64.7 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Most of that - $51 billion - was for American troops in Iraq, while another $10 billion was for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The money includes everything from salaries owed reservists called to active duty to buying aircraft parts, missiles and thousands of extra sets of body armor for ground troops. In the starkest departure from Bush's proposal, there is $18.6 billion - $1.7 billion below the president's plan - for retooling Iraq's economy and government. This included funds for clinics, power and water supplies and training police officers and entrepreneurs. Dropped, however, was money that critics said was wasteful or at least not needed urgently. This included money Bush wanted for ZIP and telephone area codes; a children's hospital in Basra, which is patrolled by British troops; sanitation trucks; and restoration of drained marshlands. Though Bush got less than he wanted for Iraqi aid, the White House fended off lawmakers of both parties who had forced a provision through the Senate making half the aid to Iraq a loan. House-Senate bargainers killed that language last week, leaving the aid a grant that Baghdad will not have to repay. The bill also has $1.2 billion for buttressing Afghanistan; $500 million for helping victims of U.S. natural disasters, such as Hurricane Isabel and California's wildfires; and $245 million for international peacekeeping efforts in Liberia. Money also was included to expand Arabic-language broadcasts into Iraq, secure U.S. diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan, provide rewards for the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and aid Pakistan and other U.S. allies. Senate Democrats staged a hearing of their own to underline the exclusion of a Senate-passed provision setting criminal penalties for war profiteering. A business consultant told the lawmakers that U.S. taxpayers are paying excessive reconstruction costs because small- and medium-sized Iraqi businesses that win contracts are charged exorbitant interest rates by Iraq's most powerful families. The consultant, Timothy Mill, urged the creation of a lending fund from $500 million in seized Iraqi assets.

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (485898)	11/3/2003 5:59:02 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Dow and S&P 500 Rally to Close at 17-Month Highs By REUTERS Filed at 3:19 p.m. ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. technology stocks hit a 21-month high on Monday and blue-chip stocks hit 17-month highs after a surprisingly strong reading on the manufacturing sector lifted investors' hopes for a U.S. economic rebound.Index (.IXIC) was up 35.71 points, or 1.85 percent, at 1,967.92, a level not seen since Jan. 17, 2002. The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) was up 78.08 points, or 0.8 percent, at 9,879.20 and the broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) was up 10.03 points, or 0.95 percent, at 1,060.74, both hitting levels not seen since June 3, 2002.