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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (185657)	3/28/2004 2:03:04 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571973

Clarke OKs Release of His Testimony, Documents Bush Critic Challenges White House to Do the Same Reuters Sunday, March 28, 2004; 12:23 PM Former U.S. counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke Sunday called on the White House to make public his own testimony to Congress as well as other statements, e-mails and documents about how the Bush administration handled the threat of terror. Clarke, center of a firestorm over the level of engagement of President Bush in the issue before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was responding to Republican allegations that his earlier testimony to Congress contradicted statements he made last week that criticized Bush. "I would welcome it being declassified, but not just a little line here or there. Let's declassify all six hours of my testimony," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, slamming Clarke on Friday, called for declassifying Clarke's July 2002 testimony to a joint hearing by the Senate and House of Representatives Intelligence committees. Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said Clarke's words then, when, as a member of Bush administration he defended its policies, conflicted with last week's sworn public testimony before the bipartisan commission investigating the attacks, known popularly as the 9/11 Commission. Clarke said he supported having that testimony declassified and also wanted testimony given in private to the commission by Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice made public. He said he wanted everything out in the open. "The White House is selectively now finding my e-mails, which I would have assumed were covered by some privacy regulations, and selectively leaking them to the press. "Let's take all of my e-mails and all of the memos that I sent to the national security adviser and her deputy from January 20th to September 11th, and let's declassify all of it," he said. "The (9-11) victims' families have no idea what Dr. Rice has said," Clarke said. Rice has been criticized for appearing extensively on television but not in public before the panel. Clarke rejected accusations by Republicans that he was speaking out for political reasons eight months before presidential elections. A career government official, Clarke said he was not part of the campaign of Bush's rival, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, and had no ambition to work in any administration of either party. Clarke says many of his recommendations were ignored or downplayed by the Bush administration, and that he was marginalized when he urged the White House not to retaliate against Iraq for attacks by the al Qaeda network. washingtonpost.com

To: i-node who wrote (185657)	3/28/2004 2:07:50 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1571973

Collapse of Arab summit shows difficulty in bringing democratic reforms to Middle East ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer Sunday, March 28, 2004 (03-28) 09:49 PST (AP) -- An AP News Analysis TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) -- The collapse of an Arab summit intended to respond to U.S. calls for democratic reform dramatizes the problems Washington faces in promoting political freedoms in a vast Arab sea of authoritarian rule. Summit leaders had expected to approve a common response to the Bush administration's "Greater Middle East Initiative," a program to encourage political reforms, women's rights and other freedoms throughout the region. After three days of contentious wrangling by Arab foreign ministers trying to draft a summit declaration, host Tunisia pulled the plug late Saturday, announcing an indefinite postponement only two days before the heads of state and government were to have started meeting. Tunisian Foreign Ministry official Hatem bin Salem cited differences over "modernization and reform" as the main reasons for aborting the summit, which was also aimed at relaunching a two-year-old peace initiative toward the Israelis. Egypt offered Sunday to host a reconvened summit, and an Arab League official, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested it could be held in late April or early May. Inter-Arab disputes are common but it was the first time a summit has been canceled since 1983, when Arabs were divided over Syria's opposition to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. In this case, Tunisia's official news agency lamented the fact that unspecified countries failed to support calls for "tolerance" and "understanding" and could not even agree to put the word "democracy" in the final draft of a position paper to be approved by heads of state. Tunisian lamentations over the sad state of Arab democracy are ironic. Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has ruled this North African country with a tight fist since seizing power in a 1987 palace coup. Ben Ali is hardly alone in the Arab world, one of the last bastions of authoritarianism holding out against the global trend toward democracy. Promoting democracy is key to U.S. hopes of transforming the Middle East and combatting Islamic terrorism in the post-Sept. 11 world. Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network, and others have long accused Washington of supporting "tyrants" in the Middle East to help protect Israel and secure supplies of oil. Democratic Arab states, so the argument goes, would be more amenable to resolving the conflict with Israel. Many Arabs believe regional stability and progress are hostage to resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Promoting greater freedoms complements the U.S. military campaign in Iraq. By removing Saddam Hussein, one of the Middle East's most vicious tyrants, the United States hoped that a newly democratic Iraq would serve as a beacon to other Arabs. Just as the crisis in the Iraq occupation has dispelled illusions about the ease of transforming that country, the failure of the Arab summit shows that the path to Arab democracy is rocky. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert H. Reid, based in Brussels, Belgium, is a former Cairo bureau chief and roving Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press. sfgate.com

To: i-node who wrote (185657)	3/28/2004 2:13:01 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1571973

Huh? This is a joke. ******************************************************** Pakistan Withdraws, Calls Mission Success By SADAQAT JAN Associated Press Writer PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP)--Pakistan called its mission to chase down and kill Taliban and al-Qaida militants a success and began withdrawing troops Sunday after tribesmen along the border with Afghanistan agreed to release captured soldiers and politicians. Officials said, however, troops would remain in the unruly western border region while tribal leaders negotiate the hand-over of other foreign militants. Eleven soldiers were released Sunday morning and two local officials were expected to be released later in the day or early Monday, said Brig. Mahmood Shah, the regional security chief. Another soldier escaped before he could be released, he added. ``The main objectives of the operation have been achieved. They included destroying dens, searching of homes, taking people into custody and the recovery of gadgets and equipment,'' Shah said. Troops would regroup in South Waziristan's main town of Wana and remain in the area, he said. But Shah said 500-600 suspected militants still may be hiding along the border with Afghanistan and he did not rule out using military force against them. The army would continue using a combination of military operations and talks with tribal leaders to rid the region of suspected al-Qaida forces and allies, he said. About 10,000 Mahsud tribesmen met Sunday near Wana to help authorities track the perpetrators of an attack on an army convoy last week. Late Saturday, military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said recently gathered intelligence--combined with eyewitness accounts _ indicated that alleged terrorist Tahir Yuldash had been badly wounded and was in hiding. He said Pakistani forces were not close to capturing him. ``He might have slipped away, he's on the run,'' Sultan said. Yuldash is the leader of an Uzbek terror group allied with al-Qaida called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. He was previously mentioned as one of two possible ``high-value targets'' cornered when Pakistan's military began the sweep of South Waziristan on March 16. Despite the apparent escape, Sultan said the operation had been successful because the military had killed 60 suspected militants and captured 163 more. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key ally of the United States, has sent 70,000 troops to the border with Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 attacks to prevent cross-border attacks--the first such deployment since independence from Britain in 1947. U.S. and Afghan forces have deployed on the other side of the border as part of a new offensive against al-Qaida and Taliban forces there. Musharraf has said U.S. experts are working with Pakistani troops, but no American military forces have crossed into Pakistan. ``As far as al-Qaida is concerned, yes, indeed, they are in bigger numbers than we thought in that region. And we need to eliminate them. It's very clear that we will eliminate them,'' Musharraf said in an interview on ABC News' ``This Week with George Stephanopoulos'' aired Sunday in the United States. He said tribal elders from six of the seven tribal groups in western Pakistan were cooperating with the government's efforts to capture, kill or drive out foreign extremists. ``They are cooperating with us, cooperating with the army. And I'm very sure we'll take a very hard stand, and the writ of the government will be established, and these people have to be eliminated,'' Musharraf said. AP-NY-03-28-04 1301EST ajc.com