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To: Raymond Duray who wrote (44354)	1/6/2004 5:08:41 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 74559

Raymond, How can it be interesting to discuss politics with only those who agree with everything? It's their loss. Do you think the following will hurt or help Pres Bush get re-elected?-- Bush to Propose Immigration Law Changes Monday, 05-Jan-2004 5:50PM Story from AP Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press (via ClariNet) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- President Bush will propose immigration law changes to allow workers from Mexico to enter the United States if they have jobs waiting for them, officials said Monday in previewing an election-year measure intended to bolster support among Hispanic voters. Advocacy groups were invited to the White House on Wednesday to hear details of the program. "The president has long talked about the importance of having an immigration policy that matches willing workers with willing employers," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "It's important for America to be a welcoming society. We are a nation of immigrants, and we're better for it." Immigration advocacy groups characterized Bush's move as a politically drawn effort to curry favor with Hispanics, a potent political force, particularly in key states like Florida, California and border states. Two sources speaking on condition of anonymity said Bush would outline a set of principles rather than a detailed piece of legislation, and that the policy statement would draw on bills already pending in Congress. "It looks very much like a political effort and what they do with these `principles' is going to determine whether this is really a policy initiative or not," said Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza. "The Latino community knows the difference between political posturing and a real policy debate." She said the initiative was crafted by Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove, and that the immigration policy community was excluded from the deliberations. "We know of no one in the immigration policy community, business groups or Latino groups who has been consulted," she said. Rove, with Bush at a campaign fund-raiser in St. Louis, deflected questions about Bush's proposal. "Stay tuned," he told a reporter. Bush's planned announcement comes five days before he meets in Mexico with President Vicente Fox on the sidelines of the Summit of the Americas, a meeting of the hemisphere's leaders. Mexico is seeking a measure of legality for the approximately 4 million undocumented Mexicans living in the United States and wants a legal way for others to work in the country in the future. Immigration talks between the United States and Mexico stalled when the Sept. 11 terror attacks prompted the United States to tighten border restrictions, and were set back further by Mexico's refusal to support the Iraq war. Tensions also arose over Bush's refusal to stop the execution of a Mexican national in Texas. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, at a town hall meeting in Miami last month, hinted at a change of policy when he said the United States needs to "come to grips" with an estimated 8 million to 12 million illegal immigrants and "determine how you can legalize their presence." He also said that the immigrants should not be rewarded citizenship. Bush, at a year-end news conference in January, said he was preparing to send Congress ideas about an "immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee." He said he is "firmly against blanket amnesty," or a mass legalization. Two guest-worker bills have been proposed in Congress: One from Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain and two of McCain's Republican House colleagues, Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake; and a second from Sen. John Cornyn. Cornyn, a Texas Republican, has proposed that illegal immigrants could volunteer to work for up to three years if a job exists for them. When they've worked three years, they could apply for legal permanent residence, but must return to their country of origin to do so. Workers illegally in the United States would have 12 months to apply to the program and after that would no longer be eligible. Those accepted would be given a "blue card," allowing them to travel outside the United States. The Cornyn proposal would give guest workers the same rights granted Americans under Labor Department laws and would set up accounts for workers in which employers would deposit money drawn from workers' wages in lieu of withdrawing the money for Social Security or Medicare. The money would be held by the Treasury and would be refunded to the worker when the worker returns to his or her home country.

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (44354)	1/7/2004 2:14:47 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

<<the cost of deploying systems on all US aircraft have ranged from $10bn to $100bn.>> Well, price range seems to be really broad. Jay is going to say: USD1.5bn if Made in China and one Kung Fu fighter -you know those guys who kick ass for half hour without any feet touching the ground- throwing free of charge :-) US steps up effort to defend aircraft from missiles By Edward Alden in Washington and Kevin Done and Cathy Newman in London Published: January 6 2004 20:33 \| Last Updated: January 6 2004 20:33 The US is to push ahead with efforts to protect commercial aircraft from shoulder-fired missiles, awarding three contracts to study the feasibility of developing and deploying defensive systems. The decision is the first step in a $122m (?100m, £68m), two-year plan to determine whether commercial airlines can be defended against the portable missiles, which are thought to pose one of the most serious threats to passenger aircraft. The US has stepped up efforts since November 2002, when terrorists in Kenya came close to hitting an aircraft filled with Israeli tourists leaving Mombasa. In November a DHL cargo aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing in Baghdad with one wing on fire after being hit by a surface-to-air missile. The contracts, awarded to BAE Systems of the UK and Northrop Grumman and United Airlines of the US, will focus on laser-based technologies that can defeat the heat-seeking missiles. Such technologies are deemed by US officials to be more useable in urban areas than flare-based systems used by the military. US homeland security officials said on Tuesday that it could take up to two years to determine whether military systems could be adapted for commercial use at a reasonable cost. Estimates of the cost of deploying systems on all US aircraft have ranged from $10bn to $100bn. In the UK, pilots called on Tuesday for an aviation security summit as disagreements deepened around the world in response to US calls for international airlines to place armed police officers, so-called sky marshals, on board some passenger and cargo aircraft flying in US airspace. The BBC reported that their use had already been ruled out by Portugal, Sweden and Denmark. Balpa, the UK pilots' union, held a 90-minute meeting with Alistair Darling, UK transport minister. It said afterwards it was optimistic agreement would soon be reached on a protocol to govern the deployment of armed guards on UK aircraft. It wants a guarantee that the captain will remain in command of the aircraft at all times, that only low velocity weapons will be used, and that sky marshals will be active or former police officers. Until such agreement is reached it has advised pilots not to fly if sky marshals are on board. Mr Darling told parliament that "sky marshals will be deployed where appropriate". The government would use "all the security measures available to us, as and when appropriate, whilst at the same time enabling people to go about their day-to-day business". The minister denied that the government had been forced by the US to agree to put armed guards on some aircraft, saying that their deployment had been policy since December 2002. He described the measures as "responsible and prudent", adding: "One thing that's worse than having a sky marshal on the plane is having a terrorist on the plane."

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (44354)	1/7/2004 6:21:46 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

White House 'distorted' Iraq threat By Stephen Fidler in London Published: January 7 2004 21:56 \| Last Updated: January 7 2004 21:56 Bush administration officials "systematically misrepresented" the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to war, according to a new report to be published on Thursday by a respected Washington think-tank. These distortions, combined with intelligence failures, exaggerated the risks posed by a country that presented no immediate threat to the US, Middle East or global security, the report says. The study from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concludes that, though the long-term threat from Iraq could not be ignored, it was being effectively contained by a combination of UN weapons inspections, international sanctions and limited US-led military action. It says the evidence shows that although Iraq retained ambitions to develop weapons of mass destruction, almost all of what had been built had been destroyed long before the war. Inspectors from the US-led coalition are still seeking evidence of the programmes in Iraq. But Joseph Cirincione, director of Carnegie's non-proliferation project, said: "We think it's highly unlikely that there will be any significant finds from now on." Carnegie is regarded as a moderately left-of-centre think-tank. It opposed the war, saying Iraq's disarmament could be achieved via inspectors, if necessary backed up by force. Mr Cirincione said the report, which took more than six months to compile, was based on hundreds of documents and dozens of interviews with specialists, former weapons inspectors and current and former US officials. It concludes that before 2002 the US intelligence community appears to have accurately perceived Iraq's nuclear and missile programmes, but overestimated the threat from chemical and biological weapons. But it also says that during 2002, published intelligence became excessively politicised. A "dramatic shift" in intelligence assessments during the year was one sign that "the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymakers' views sometime in 2002". The report says administration officials misrepresented the threat in three ways. They presented nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as a single WMD threat, lumping together the high likelihood that Iraq had chemical weapons with the possibility that it had nuclear weapons, a claim for which there was no serious evidence. The administration also insisted without evidence that Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi leader, would give WMD to terrorists. Finally, officials misused intelligence in many ways. "These include the wholesale dropping of caveats, probabilities and expressions of uncertainty present in intelligence assessments from public statements," it says. The Carnegie assessment concluded: "There is no evidence of any Iraqi nuclear programme", contrary to assertions by Dick Cheney, vice-president, and others in 2002. It notes that since the war the US-led coalition has found no chemical weapons or programmes and no biological weapons or agents. The report says the White House approach to the war was based on what it called "worse case reasoning", assuming that what intelligence agencies did not know was worse than what they did know. "Worst-case planning is valid . . . [But] acting on worst-case assumptions is an entirely different matter." The picture of an Iraqi arsenal existing only on paper is reinforced by an article in Wednesday's Washington Post, based partly on interviews with Iraqi scientists. It said that none of Iraq's weapons programmes had got past the planning stage since the 1991 Gulf war. NOTE: We need some study in the "misrepresented" threat to national security. It is going to be just a matter fo time.