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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Carragher who wrote (20750)	12/21/2003 8:46:25 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793696

The U.S. Soldier Is Time Person of Year The U.S. Soldier Named Time's Person of the Year, Representing 1.4 Million Men, Women in Uniform The Associated Press NEW YORK Dec. 21 — The American soldier, who bears the duty of "living with and dying for a country's most fateful decisions," was named Sunday as Time magazine's Person of the Year. The magazine's editors chose the nameless soldier to represent the 1.4 million men and women who make up the U.S. military, which led the invasion of Iraq nine months ago and a week ago captured deposed leader Saddam Hussein. About 130,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Iraq, with others deployed in Afghanistan, South Korea and elsewhere. Soldiers were singled out as the top newsmakers of the year because "the very messy aftermath of the war made it clear that the mission had changed, that the mission had not been completed and that this would be a story that would be with us for months, if not years, to come," Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly said. The selection echoes 1950, the year the Korean War began, when editors picked the American GI for the cover, writing that "it was not a role the American had sought, either as an individual or as a nation. The U.S. fighting-man was not civilization's crusader, but destiny's draftee." The 2003 Person of the Year package, which hits newsstands Monday, focuses on a 12-person artillery survey unit stationed in Iraq to tell the story of the American soldier. Two Time journalists embedded with the platoon were injured in a grenade attack this month. Three soldiers with the unit Marquette Whiteside, Billie Grimes and Ronald Buxton are shown on the cover. The magazine glorifies soldiers but not the Bush administration for putting them in Iraq, calling troops "the bright sharp instrument of a blunt policy," and leaving it to scholars to debate "whether the Bush doctrine is the most muscular expression of national interest in a half-century." The justification for a U.S. military presence in Iraq has been widely questioned, as coalition forces have found no weapons of mass destruction, which President Bush had argued Saddam was stockpiling. Guerrilla attacks against U.S. and allied forces stationed there have escalated over the months since May 1 when the president declared an end to major combat. More coalition troops died in November than in any other month: 104, including 79 Americans. "A force intensively trained for its mission finds itself improvising at every turn, required to exercise exquisite judgment in extreme circumstances," the magazine said. "They complain less about the danger than the uncertainty they are told they're going home in two weeks, and then two months later they have not moved." The Pentagon has said it expects to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq to just over 100,000 by May. Time magazine knows the risks first hand. On the evening of Dec. 10, Time writer Michael Weisskopf's right hand was blown off and photographer James Nachtway was hit with shrapnel when a grenade landed on their humvee as the platoon was stuck in Baghdad traffic. Weisskopf is recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and Nachtway is in New York. In 2001, when then-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was picked as Time's Person of the Year for leading the city's response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks, critics suggested Osama bin Laden should have been featured as the top newsmaker. Kelly said Saddam was not considered this year because "he was on the losing side of this conflict," and it was unclear how much he was leading the insurgency. Last year, Time editors selected Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who wrote a scathing memo on FBI intelligence failures, and Cynthia Cooper and Sherron Watkins, who blew the whistle on corruption at corporate giants Enron and WorldCom.

To: John Carragher who wrote (20750)	12/21/2003 9:47:09 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793696

Here is something out of "left field." PUNTING JUSTICE By DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL Debbie Schlussel is a Detroit-based attorney and talk-show host. December 21, 2003 -- A U.S. Attorney is endangering the nation's only jury conviction of terrorists since 9/11. Tuesday, three men convicted in the first post-9/11 terror trial were supposed to be sentenced. Instead, these members of Detroit's "sleeper cell" may go free. Their defense attorneys are getting help from an unlikely source - U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins, the Justice Department's top official in Detroit, who is leading the way to overturn these convictions. Richard Convertino, the star prosecutor of the Detroit U.S. Attorney's Office, won the case - and Collins' actions may cost Convertino his job. A seasoned litigator, Convertino helped prosecute the infamous Bank and Credit Commerce International (BCCI), put a corrupt Oklahoma state senator behind bars and got convictions against Detroit's Mafia and gang leaders. He took the same aggressive stance against the terrorists, who were arrested less than a week after 9/11. But Collins and Justice Department bureaucrats back in Washington were more worried about taking risks, justifying budgets and preserving fiefdoms than stopping terror. They opposed and sabotaged Convertino's prosecution of the terrorists every step of the way. According to several of his colleagues, Collins' political ambitions also played a role: Popularity with Detroit's large Muslim community would be an asset in any future run for political office. The same colleagues say Collins was infuriated to see subordinate Convertino win headlines with the prosecution. Collins had another reason to oppose the prosecution. Two of the convicted men received thousands in funding for commercial driving lessons and attempts to get hazardous hauling certificates from Access, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services. The Muslim welfare group gets millions in federal money for such "job training." A conviction would embarrass Access leaders, who meet with Collins monthly. That includes Noel Saleh, Access' vice president and attorney, who stated in Collins' presence, "I could be convicted of terrorism," because he funded Hezbollah. Convertino's June conviction of the terrorists caught the attention of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who wanted Convertino to testify at a hearing on false identity documents and terrorism. When Convertino informed his bosses, they pulled him off the terror-cell case. Also removed: co-counsel Keith Corbett, chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force and a 25-year federal prosecutor. Grassley had to subpoena Convertino and hailed him as a "hero" at the hearing. Collins responded by trying to demote Convertino and Corbett. He had staff search Convertino's previous case files, including that of the sleeper cell trial, looking for what Grassley calls the "slightest foot-fault" in Convertino's stellar career. Convertino's only comment: "This whole situation is ridiculous and unnecessary, and unfortunately has caused considerable embarrassment to the Department of Justice." Collins' attack on Convertino has seriously jeopardized the terrorism convictions. His staff found a letter they claim was improperly withheld from the terrorists' defense attorneys, giving them grounds to file a motion for a new trial. That motion prompted a long Dec. 12 hearing smearing Convertino and Corbett. Prosecutors have to turn exculpatory evidence over to defense attorneys. But the rambling, nonsensical letter accused the Bush family of being drug dealers and claimed that the prosecution's key witness planned to overthrow the U.S. "electorally." Its author is convicted drug dealer Butch Jones, who's facing the federal death penalty and looking to make a deal. He has suddenly clammed up. Before becoming U.S. attorney, Collins represented Jones, one of the nation's most notorious drug kingpins and gang leaders, and is privately fighting his Washington superiors on their insistence on the death penalty for him. (Justice Department sources say that, in an internal memo, he's now trying to claim Jones as a source of anti-terror info.) Michael Schwartz, former head of the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission, which investigates ethics violations by attorneys, said the letter was not "exculpatory at all" and a "proverbial tempest in a teapot where there was no impropriety in failing to turn over what turned out to be a fairly useless document." Another complication: Attorney General John Ashcroft repeatedly commented on the trial on national TV - violating a gag order in the case, for which the judge admonished him Tuesday. This may make it harder for Ashcroft to intervene to stop Collins' own misbehavior. Sadly, Collins' zeal to defame Convertino and Corbett is matched only by questions raised about both his desire to stop terrorists and his ethics. He refused to cancel his appearance as guest of honor and keynote speaker at a November dinner co-hosted by a Hamas money launderer and author of an anti-Semitic book. At an awards luncheon, he was the "date" of a man videotaped raising money for a terrorist group (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), calling him, "a great American." When his office discovered that two defense attorneys in the terrorism trial stole a federal judge's stationery and forged the judge's signature, Collins overlooked the crimes. Sen. Grassley is pursuing the issue of Collins' retaliation against Convertino, sending four letters and making several phone calls to Ashcroft and Collins, saying it "will not be tolerated." He has yet to receive a satisfactory response from either and has threatened hearings. nypost.com