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Politics : WHO IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (7527)	12/13/2003 11:03:12 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 10965

U.S. General to Review Pay After Iraq Army Walkout URL:http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/256517\|top\|12-13-2003::09:43\|reuters.html Dec 13, 9:27 AM (ET) By Michael Georgy BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The top U.S. general in Iraq said on Saturday he would rethink the Iraqi army pay structure after a wave of recruits quit the new force over low salaries. His remarks came after a bomb killed a U.S. soldier west of Baghdad, the latest in a series of deadly attacks that have increased domestic pressure on the U.S. administration over Iraq and led it to accelerate plans to hand power over to Iraqis. Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez acknowledged soldiers who quit over salaries of $150 monthly for senior officers may have a legitimate grievance. "We're in the process of reviewing the pay scales to determine what needs to be done there to ensure that they have a decent standard of living," he told reporters in Baghdad. Plans for a 40,000-strong new Iraqi army to help replace U.S. forces on Iraq's streets hit a snag this week when officials of the U.S.-led civil administration said almost half of the 700-man first unit had quit over pay. Those troops, along with larger police and security forces, are central to U.S. plans to turn responsibility for security and formal sovereignty over to Iraqis by mid-2004, ahead of U.S. presidential elections where the U.S. occupation of Iraq looms. Sanchez said he hoped to have a solution on the pay issue in the weeks to come, adding: "I believe our targets for building the new Iraqi army are still valid." Washington's Iraq troubles extended to Europe, where the defense minister of Germany -- which opposed the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein -- said U.S. troops were ill-prepared for their mission of preparing Iraq for democracy. The remarks reflect the depth of transatlantic bitterness over Iraq following a Pentagon decision to limit $18.6 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts to countries that backed the United States, freezing out the likes of Germany, France and China. European Commission officials are studying whether the restrictions violate World Trade Organization rules. CONTRACTS ROW CONTINUES The heat over Iraq also reached the U.S. administration at home, as President Bush acknowledged that a company once linked to his deputy Dick Cheney may have overcharged for deliveries of fuel to Baghdad. Bush administration critics say Halliburton, of which Cheney was once chief executive, unduly benefited from government connections. The fuel deliveries were made under a contract awarded to Halliburton in March without competition. Underlining security troubles that have plagued Iraq since April, Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers cordoned off an area near a Baghdad hotel where Western contractors stay, fearing a bomb had been planted there. In the southern port city of Basra, hundreds of former Iraqi army officers demanding back pay blocked streets around the headquarters of the civil administration, burning tires and throwing stones. In Tikrit, the center of the hunt for the ousted Iraqi leader, the U.S. Army said it had disciplined a senior officer who admitted firing a pistol near an Iraqi's head and letting his troops beat the man during an interrogation. In a statement, the U.S. military said that Lieutenant-Colonel Allen West had been fined $5,000 and submitted a request to retire, but would avoid a court martial. It cited "mitigating factors." West had told a military tribunal his actions were wrong but that he was protecting the lives of his men while interrogating the Iraqi man, who he believed had information about plots to attack U.S. troops.

To: calgal who wrote (7527)	12/13/2003 11:05:04 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10965

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT: The untold story of the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy How the public's business gets done out of the public eye Friday, Dec. 12, the PBS television program NOW with Bill Moyers will air a report on Bush administration secrecy produced in collaboration with U.S. News. Please visit pbs.org for stations and airtimes in your area. The U.S. News article, "Keeping Secrets," will be publshed in Monday's edition. Full text will be available on USNews.com Saturday, Dec. 13, at 6 p.m. The Bush administration has removed from the public domain millions of pages of information on health, safety, and environmental matters, lowering a shroud of secrecy over many critical operations of the federal government. The administration's efforts to shield the actions of, and the information held by, the executive branch are far more extensive than has been previously documented. And they reach well beyond security issues. A five-month investigation by U.S. News details a series of initiatives by administration officials to effectively place large amounts of information out of the reach of ordinary citizens, including data on such issues as drinking-water quality and automotive tire safety. The magazine's inquiry is based on a detailed review of government reports and regulations, of federal agency Web sites, and of legislation pressed by the White House. U.S. News also analyzed information from public interest groups and others that monitor the administration's activities, and interviewed more than 100 people, including many familiar with the new secrecy initiatives. That information was supplemented by a review of materials provided in response to more than 200 Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the magazine seeking details of federal agencies' practices in providing public access to government information. Among the findings of the investigation: ?Important business and consumer information is increasingly being withheld from the public. The Bush administration is denying access to auto and tire safety information, for instance, that manufacturers are required to provide under a new "early-warning system" created following the Ford-Firestone tire scandal four years ago. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, meanwhile, is more frequently withholding information that would allow the public to scrutinize its product safety findings and product recall actions. ?New administrative initiatives have effectively placed off limits critical health and safety information potentially affecting millions of Americans. The information includes data on quality and vulnerability of drinking-water supplies, potential chemical hazards in communities, and safety of airline travel and others forms of transportation. ?Beyond the well-publicized cases involving terrorism suspects, the administration is aggressively pursuing secrecy claims in the federal courts in ways little understood--even by some in the legal system. The administration is increasingly invoking a "state secrets" privilege that allows government lawyers to request that civil and criminal cases be effectively closed by asserting that national security would be compromised if they proceed. ?New administration policies have thwarted the ability of Congress to exercise its constitutional authority to monitor the executive branch and, in some cases, even to obtain basic information about its actions. There are no precise statistics on how much government information is rendered secret. One measure, though, can be seen in a tally of how many times officials classify records. In the first two years of Bush's term, his administration classified records some 44.5 million times, or about the same number as in President Clinton's last four years, according to the Information Security Oversight Office, an arm of the National Archives and Records Administration. MEDIA CONTACT: Rchard Folkers, Director of Media Relations(rfolkers@usnews.com or 202-955-2219)