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

To: lurqer who wrote (35228)	1/15/2004 9:56:09 PM
From: No Mo Mo	Respond to of 89467

Give me a break....! That...right on the heels of this nonsense: "White House seeks control on health, safety: The Office of Management and Budget wants to have the final say on releasing emergency declarations to the public." stltoday.com From what you posted: "Both Olive and Carrie Mahan worked at the now closed racetrack and ate lunch there every day. When Skarbek found a third CJD victim, broadcaster John Weber, who had a season pass to the track, she dug more and eventually found seven CJD victims in the area. All had some connection to the track. That, she thought, can't be random, so she asked the Centers for Disease Control to investigate. But, Skarbek says, they weren't interested in it because it was only sporadic CJD." Cause and effect. People have to have faith in their ability to relate these.

To: lurqer who wrote (35228)	1/15/2004 10:22:29 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Initially, we had no plan. Then from the carrier strut to the end of summer, we had Plan A. But Plan A didn't anticipate any opposition (remember "Bring um on"). When that proved unfeasible, we had Plan B, aka The Crawford Strategy - from where it was "hatched". Its goal was to "get on top of the situation", and at the time was called a mid-course correction. But that didn't work either. So with the election only a little more than a year away, we had Plan C. This Plan C has lasted longer than the ill fated Plan B, but it is now clearly in trouble. What to do? What to do? Plan C½? Plan D? We'll know soon. Warning of Edict Against U.S. as Shi'ites Demand Poll Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims marched to chants of "No to America" on Thursday and an aide to their spiritual leader warned of bigger protests if Washington rejected the majority group's call for elections. Iraq's U.S. governor Paul Bremer headed for Washington for talks on Friday with President Bush. They are likely to discuss mounting tension over a U.S. plan to hand sovereignty to an Iraqi administration by July without holding the direct elections that the long-oppressed Shi'ites are demanding. In the latest violence, three Iraqis were killed and one was injured when a land mine exploded under a bus in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's mostly Sunni Muslim home town, the U.S. military said. Highlighting fears of ethnic and religious bloodshed in the wake of Saddam's overthrow, a leader of the small Turkmen minority vowed a fight to the last drop of blood over a Kurdish drive to carve out an autonomous homeland in the north. In the Shi'ite south, tens of thousands protested in Iraq's British-controlled second city of Basra in support of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's call for elections. It was a show of strength behind the top Shi'ite cleric who an aide said could issue an edict against any unelected body. "If (Sistani) issues a fatwa (or edict) all the Iraqi people will go out in protest marches and demonstrations against the (U.S.-led) coalition forces," the aide, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Mohri, told Reuters in Kuwait. Mohri earlier told Abu Dhabi television such a fatwa could undermine the legitimacy of any unelected Iraqi administration. Sistani has objected to the U.S. plan for a transitional assembly to be selected by regional caucuses rather than a popular election. The assembly will select an interim government that is due to take over sovereignty by the end of June. U.S.-LED FORCES BATTLING INSURGENTS A Sistani edict could turn many Shi'ites against Washington at a time when U.S.-led forces are battling guerrillas in what they call the "Sunni triangle" north and west of Baghdad. Bremer has said he respects Sistani but that there is not enough time to hold elections before a handover of sovereignty. U.S. officials say they are reviewing the planned regional caucuses to make the process as open as possible. U.S. officials said Bremer was expected to meet Bush, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington on Friday. In Basra, the protesters marched to a mosque, waving banners and photographs of Sistani, although he himself did not attend. A Basra cleric, Ali al-Hakim al-Safi, told the crowd at the mosque that Shi'ites would seek their goals peacefully for now. "But if we find peaceful means are no longer available to us we will have to seek other methods," he said. U.S. officials and the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council was trying to persuade Sistani to soften his stance. GOVERNING COUNCIL HOPES FOR SISTANI SUPPORT The head of the Governing Council, Adnan Pachachi, told reporters he hoped Sistani would come around. "Sistani would prefer elections... (But) he would like to be persuaded that it's not possible," said Pachachi. Adding to political tensions in Iraq, the country's Arabs and Turkmen bitterly oppose a plan by Kurds on the Governing Council for significant autonomy for a Kurdish area. "We will defend the unity of Iraq until the last moment and the last drop of our blood," said Sami Mohammed Donmez, deputy leader of the Iraqi Turkmen Front coalition of parties. The United States and the Governing Council are pushing for the United Nations to play a role in the political transition by overseeing the regional caucuses. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a Shi'ite Muslim on the Governing Council, wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan asking the United Nations to study the possibility of early polls or find a compromise path to election of an assembly. Annan said in reply it was technically impossible to organize elections by June and stopped short of promising U.N. action in solving the dispute or endorsing the current process. Annan, the Governing Council and representatives from the United States and Britain will meet in New York on January 19. The U.N. is wary of returning to Iraq due to security issues and a reluctance to be seen rubber-stamping U.S. policy. Since the start of the war in March that ousted Saddam, 343 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq, 228 of them in guerrilla attacks since Bush said major combat ended in May. Washington blames the attacks on Saddam supporters and foreign Islamic militants. Public opinion polls show an American public uncomfortable with the casualties, but still supportive of the war as Bush presses his case for re-election in November. washingtonpost.com JMO lurqer