U.S. lawmakers vote reject immunity for phone firms involved in eavesdropping

By Eric Lichtblau
Friday, March 14, 2008

WASHINGTON: After its first secret session in a quarter-century, the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday rejected retroactive immunity for the phone companies that took part in the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program after the Sept. 11 attacks, and it voted to place greater restrictions on the government's wiretapping powers.

The decision, by a largely party-line vote of 213 to 197, is one of the few times when Democrats have been willing to buck up against the White House on a national security issue. It also ensures that the months-long battle over the government's wiretapping powers will drag on for at least a few more weeks and possibly much longer.

With President George W. Bush and Democratic leaders squaring off almost daily on the wiretapping question, neither side has shown much inclination to budge. The question now moves to the Senate, where lawmakers passed a bill last month that was much more to the liking of the White House. Unlike the bill approved Friday by the House, it would give legal immunity to the phone providers that helped in the National Security Agency's wiretapping program, which Bush says is essential to protect national security.

The House bill approved Friday includes three key elements: It would refuse retroactive immunity to the phone companies, providing special authority instead for the courts to decide the liability issue; it would add additional judicial restrictions on the government's wiretapping powers while plugging certain loopholes in foreign coverage; and it would create a congressional commission to investigate the NSA program.

Even if the House bill were to gain approval by the Senate - a prospect that appears unlikely - a veto by the White House appears certain. The margin by which the House vote was approved was far short of the two-thirds needed to override a veto.

Even before the first vote was cast, Bush assailed the Democrats' proposal in remarks Thursday at the White House, calling it "a partisan bill that would undermine America's security."

"Companies that may have helped us save lives should be thanked for their patriotic service, not subjected to billion-dollar lawsuits that will make them less willing to help in the future," the president said. "The House bill may be good for class action trial lawyers, but it would be terrible for the United States."

In fact, while some private lawyers are assisting in the litigation, the groups leading the efforts, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, are nonprofit advocacy groups.

Bush also blasted the requirement in the legislation to create a bipartisan commission with subpoena power to examine the workings of the NSA's program. Democrats say it may be the only way they will learn how the program was really run, but Bush called it "a redundant and partisan exercise that would waste our intelligence officials' time and taxpayers' money."

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was sharply critical of the president's assessment that the legislation would not make America safer. "The president is wrong, and he knows it," she said Thursday.

Republicans convinced Democratic leaders to convene a secret session of the House on Thursday evening to discuss classified intelligence related to the phone companies' role in the NSA program. Republicans said the session was crucial to understanding what role the companies had played, but Democrats accused their counterparts of political grandstanding. It was the first secret session since 1983, when the House met behind closed doors to consider funding for the contra rebels in Nicaragua.

C.I.A. Secretly Held Qaeda Suspect, Officials Say

By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — The Central Intelligence Agency secretly detained a suspected member of Al Qaeda for at least six months beginning last summer as part of a program in which C.I.A. officers have been authorized by President Bush to use harsh interrogation techniques, American officials said Friday.

The suspect, Muhammad Rahim, is the first Qaeda prisoner in nearly a year who intelligence officials have acknowledged has been in C.I.A. detention. The C.I.A. emptied its secret prisons in the fall of 2006, when it moved 14 prisoners to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but made clear that the facilities could be used in the future to house high-level terrorism suspects.

Mr. Bush has defended the use of the secret prisons as a vital tool in American counterterrorism efforts, and last July he signed an executive order that formally reiterated the C.I.A.’s authority to use interrogation techniques more coercive than those permitted by the Pentagon.

Mr. Bush used his veto power last weekend to block legislation that would have prohibited the agency from using the techniques, and this week the House of Representatives failed to override the veto.

Military and intelligence officials said that Mr. Rahim was transferred earlier this week to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay. In a message to agency employees on Friday, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, said Mr. Rahim had been put into the C.I.A. program because of “his past and the continuing threat he presented to American interests.”

Intelligence officials would not say whether the C.I.A. had used any of what it calls an approved list of “enhanced” interrogation techniques against Mr. Rahim during his months in secret detention.

“This detention, like others, was conducted in accordance with U.S. law,” said Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman. He declined to say whether the C.I.A. currently had custody of any other prisoners.

Government officials described Mr. Rahim, an Afghan who has fought battles for two decades, as a Qaeda planner and facilitator who at times in recent years had been a translator for Osama bin Laden.

They said he was captured and detained by local forces last summer in a country they would not name before being transferred to C.I.A. custody. Pakistani newspapers reported last summer that Pakistani operatives arrested Mr. Rahim in Lahore in August.

Before Mr. Rahim, the last prisoner the C.I.A. acknowledged it had detained was Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi Kurd held by the agency for six months before being transferred to Guantánamo last April.

In his message to C.I.A. employees on Friday, General Hayden called Mr. Rahim a “tough, seasoned jihadist” with “high-level contacts” who at times had served as a personal translator for Mr. bin Laden. The message said that in 2001, Mr. Rahim helped prepare the Afghan cave complex of Tora Bora as a hideout for Qaeda fighters fleeing the American-led offensive.

According to an American counterterrorism official, Mr. Rahim is in his 40s and is a native of Nangarhar Province in Afghanistan, a rugged mountain territory that has long been a hive of jihadi activity.

The counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said that Mr. Rahim had attended radical madrasas, or religious schools, in Pakistan.

The Bush administration last month formally charged six Qaeda operatives said to have been involved in plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. Five of the six detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, had been in C.I.A. custody until September 2006, when they were among the 14 prisoners moved to Guantánamo.

Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty against the six men, government officials have said. During a speech on Friday in London, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said he hoped that the six men would not receive the death penalty. If they were to be executed, he said, “they would see themselves as martyrs.”

Also on Friday, a lawyer representing Majid Khan, who had spent more than three years in the C.I.A.’s secret prisons, briefed Senate Intelligence Committee staff members on her client’s description of his treatment there as torture. The lawyer, Gitanjali Gutierrez of the Center for Constitutional Rights, is the first lawyer to speak to Congress after meeting with a prisoner who was in the C.I.A. program.

The 90-minute meeting was closed, and Ms. Gutierrez said that she could not reveal what Mr. Khan had said about his treatment because the government declared prisoners’ statements to be classified.

Ms. Gutierrez said her testimony was aimed at giving Congress independent information on the C.I.A. program, which she said “is operating criminally, shamefully and dangerously.” C.I.A. officials say all of the agency’s interrogation techniques were lawful at the time they were used.

Scott Shane contributed reporting.

Bush vetoes bill outlawing CIA waterboarding

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Saturday vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques.

Lawmakers included the anti-torture measure in a broader bill authorizing U.S. intelligence activities.

"Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists," Bush said in his weekly radio address. He added that the vetoed legislation "would diminish these vital tools."

The House of Representatives approved the legislation in December and the Senate passed it in February despite White House warnings it would be vetoed.

CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress last month that government interrogators used waterboarding on three suspects captured after the September 11 attacks.

The simulated drowning technique has been condemned by many members of Congress, human rights groups and other countries as a form of illegal torture.

The U.S. Army Field Manual prohibits waterboarding and seven other interrogation methods and the bill would have aligned CIA practices with the military's.

In his remarks, Bush did not specifically mention waterboarding.

But he said: "The bill Congress sent me would not simply ban one particular interrogation method, as some have implied. Instead, it would eliminate all the alternative procedures we've developed to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists."

It is unlikely that Democrats, the majority party in Congress, could muster enough votes to overturn Bush's veto. The bill passed the House and Senate on partisan votes, short of the support needed to reverse the president.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Xavier Briand)

GAO Seeks Review of Spy Agencies

The Outgoing Chief Auditor Makes a Pitch on Capitol Hill

By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 7, 2008; A15

As he leaves his post as the nation's top auditor, David M. Walker is again asking Congress to give the Government Accountability Office the power to review the finances of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Walker, whose 10-year term as comptroller general concludes Wednesday, is supporting legislation that would give the GAO access to the last major area of the federal government not subject to its audits and investigations.

With some support on Capitol Hill, Walker said he is fighting powerful legislative patrons of intelligence agencies, especially the CIA, who have resisted examinations of how taxpayer dollars are spent.

"Everybody's for accountability in Washington until they're the ones subjected to it," Walker said in an interview. "There are a lot of forces that are vested in the status quo."

The GAO, Congress's investigative arm, has the power to review the finances and management of most government agencies. But the Justice Department issued a ruling in the early 1990s that restricted oversight of the CIA to House and Senate select committees on intelligence.

That authority has been a sensitive topic since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when information sharing between the CIA and law enforcement agencies that might have revealed the plot was bungled. More recently, the corruption scandal involving former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), who used his influence to steer intelligence contracts in return for bribes, has added to calls for more oversight.

Prompted by recommendations from the 9/11 Commission, the House and Senate in 2004 reorganized the way their committees oversee intelligence and homeland security issues. But the lawmakers have never pushed to allow the GAO to examine CIA spending. They have questioned whether the GAO is too closely aligned with the congressional majority and whether its investigators have the proper clearances to handle classified intelligence matters.

"You can't just sort of wander in and do this stuff like you're investigating FAA weather stations," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. Rockefeller called GAO investigations of the intelligence world a "rather bad idea" and suggested his committee should have more oversight authority, including the power to appropriate funds to intelligence agencies.

"The GAO does precisely what the majority [in Congress] asks them to do. It follows what the majority asks," said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who chaired the intelligence committee before Rockefeller. "I don't want any further politicization of intelligence."

Walker, however, said he is not asking to look into the "sources and methods" used by spy agencies. Instead, he wants the GAO to look into "basic management transformation challenges" such as how the CIA recruits and retains top talent and, more important, how the agency has allocated its multibillion-dollar budget.

The GAO is already empowered to examine the finances of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and it has highlighted many examples of waste, fraud and abuse. Walker said. "I have little doubt that those challenges exist within the intelligence community," he said.

The CIA disagrees. Mark Mansfield, a spokesman for the agency, said that in 2007, CIA officers testified at more than 60 hearings on Capitol Hill, gave more than 500 briefings, delivered 100 "congressional notifications about our most sensitive programs" and answered more than 1,200 on-the-record questions posed by members of Congress.

"That's hardly a culture of rejecting oversight. It's a recognition of the importance of it," Mansfield said. He said CIA critics have no basis for alleging that the agency is littered with waste.

Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), sponsor of the bill that would give the GAO access to the intelligence community, said there is no way to know about problems unless the GAO can wade into CIA finances and management strategies. But in a brief interview, Akaka said he doubts the bill can clear the chamber given the bipartisan questioning it faces.

Bush Moves to Shield Telecommunications Firms

By Dan Eggen and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 2, 2008; A07

President Bush said last week that telecommunications companies that helped government wiretapping efforts need protection from "class-action plaintiff attorneys" who see a "financial gravy train" ahead. Democrats and privacy groups responded by accusing the Bush administration of trying to shut down the lawsuits to hide evidence of illegal acts.

But in the bitter Washington dispute over whether to give the companies legal immunity, there is one thing on which both sides agree: If the lawsuits go forward, sensitive details about the scope and methods of the Bush administration's surveillance efforts could be divulged for the first time.

Nearly 40 lawsuits, consolidated into five groups, are pending before a San Francisco judge. The various plaintiffs, a mix of nonprofit civil liberties advocates and private attorneys, are seeking to prove that the Bush administration engaged in illegal massive surveillance of Americans' e-mails and phone calls after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and to show that major phone companies illegally aided the surveillance, including the disclosure of customers' call records.

If the cases are allowed to proceed, plaintiffs' attorneys say, the courts could review, in secret if necessary, any government authorizations for the surveillance. The process might also force the disclosure of government memos, contracts and other documents to a judge, outlining the legal reasoning behind the warrantless wiretapping program.

Perhaps most important, disclosures in the lawsuits could clarify the scope of the government's surveillance and establish whether, as the plaintiffs allege, it involved the massive interception of purely domestic communications with the help of the nation's largest providers: AT&T, Cingular Wireless, BellSouth, Sprint and MCI/Verizon. (Verizon Communications bought MCI in 2006.)

"I think the administration would be very loath for folks to realize that ordinary people were being surveilled," said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed the lead lawsuit, against AT&T.

A prime goal in the litigation is to find out who the decision makers were, said Don Migliori, a partner with Motley Rice in Providence, R.I., a plaintiffs' attorney who is working on the lawsuit against Verizon. The plaintiffs intend to request not just government documents but also e-mails, including who contacted whom and when -- the very sort of "meta-data" that the administration is accused of mining as part of its surveillance program.

Peter Eliasberg, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney involved in cases against AT&T and Verizon, said that if the cases proceed, the plaintiffs could submit an interrogatory to the carriers seeking answers to the questions: Did you turn over customer phone records en masse to the government? Did you receive a warrant or a subpoena?

Answers to those questions, he said, might reveal that "everybody in the country" has had their phone calls "combed through, and lots of people will be outraged."

The uncertain, high-stakes nature of the litigation -- in which the plaintiffs are seeking not only disclosure to a judge of internal documents that might prove their allegations, but also a court ruling that the surveillance and collection of call records harmed millions of people -- helps explain why the administration is so adamant in supporting a Senate-passed bill aimed at strangling the lawsuits before they can proceed, according to government officials and privacy advocates.

"The whole point of [the] litigation is discovery of information," said a Justice Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. "Obviously there is information here that could be damaging to national security if it was released, and of course that is a major concern."

Although the plaintiffs say that some of the documents at issue can be reviewed in secret by a judge, Bush raised concern about public disclosures at a Thursday news conference, when he said that "allowing the lawsuits to proceed could aid our enemies" and "give al-Qaeda and others a road map as to how to avoid the surveillance."

The dispute involves the Protect America Act, a temporary law that broadened the government's powers to spy on some Americans without warrants but expired on Feb. 16. The administration backs the Senate bill, which would renew the law and add immunity for the telecommunications firms; House Democratic leaders have balked, leading to two weeks of partisan squabbling.

The administration asserts that without immunity, companies may refuse to cooperate with vital surveillance efforts in the future for fear of being sued. But the administration's preferred bill is also backward-looking: It provides legal protections for company acts after the September 2001 attacks.

Whether such protections are actually needed is unclear. The companies and the government say they are, because the companies were acting in good faith to comply with national security-related requests but cannot defend themselves in open court, whereas the plaintiffs assert that the companies already have immunity for any actions pursuant to a valid government order.

All discovery has been blocked so far by the administration's argument, still awaiting court resolution, that the suits are barred because they involve state secrets. What tantalizing clues about the surveillance have emerged so far have come from affidavits entered into the record by the plaintiffs.

If the AT&T case is allowed to proceed, for example, the plaintiffs will ask a judge to consider documents provided by a former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, that suggest a massive effort by the National Security Agency to tap into the backbone of the Internet to retrieve millions of e-mails and other exclusively domestic communications.

The government, in a brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco, has denied the existence of any "dragnet" surveillance program. In the cases against the telecommunications firms, Justice Department attorneys have argued that merely to confirm or deny any "intelligence" relationship with AT&T or any company "could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security."

Though the carriers have argued that they are barred from defending themselves against the allegations because of the government's invocation of the state-secrets privilege, at least one carrier, Verizon, has stated in regulatory filings that the cases against it are without merit.

There are also three separate surveillance-related lawsuits against the Bush administration itself that would not be stopped by either the House or Senate legislation. Though all three question the legality of the surveillance, these cases might be stopped by the courts because government officials enjoy a qualified immunity protection that the phone companies do not.

The companies themselves, including AT&T, Verizon and others, have said little publicly about the debate, citing concerns over the ongoing litigation and state secrets. However, the companies have brought senior executives into town to meet with the few lawmakers who have been briefed in detail on the government's surveillance programs.

Last fall, former attorney general John D. Ashcroft signed a letter to top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee urging retroactive immunity for the companies. His consulting firm, the Ashcroft Group, was on retainer to AT&T at the time. An Ashcroft spokeswoman declined comment.

Staff writer Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Listening In

Without protection against lawsuits, are the telecoms less willing to cooperate with government spying efforts?
By Mark Hosenball
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 5:39 PM ET Feb 22, 2008

It's been barely a week since the Democratic-controlled Congress allowed a temporary electronic spying law to lapse. But U.S. intelligence agencies are already encountering problems maintaining and expanding vital operations, the Bush administration claims.

In a letter sent late on Friday to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey claimed that in the six days since the temporary law expired, some "partners" in intelligence operations have "reduced cooperation." According to two government officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive material, the "partners" referred to in the letter are (unnamed) U.S. telecommunications companies, who-with administration backing-have been aggressively lobbying Congress for a controversial clause in new electronic spying legislation. The clause would effectively wipe out a series of private lawsuits seeking damages against the telecoms for their cooperation with what civil libertarians and administration critics claim was an illegal expansion of electronic spying against targets inside the U.S.-an expansion authorized by President Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

In their letter, McConnell and Mukasey claim that since the so-called Protect America Act lapsed, partners "have delayed or refused compliance with our requests to initiate new surveillances of terrorist and other foreign intelligence targets under existing directives issued pursuant to the Protect America Act."

The letter continues: "Although most partners intend to cooperate for the time being, they have expressed deep misgivings about doing so in light of the uncertainty and have indicated that they may well cease to cooperate if the uncertainty persists."
Mukasey and McConnell say that they are currently "working to mitigate these problems and are hopeful that our efforts will be successful." But they add that unless Congress passes a version of a new electronic surveillance bill, approved by the Senate, which includes the controversial retroactive lawsuit immunity for telecom companies, "the broader uncertainty caused" by the temporary spy law's expiration "will persist." The letter adds that: "This uncertainty may well continue to cause us to miss information that we otherwise would be collecting."

The letter amounts to a stepping-up of pressure on Democrats in Congress--and in the House in particular--to pass a surveillance bill to the liking of the White House and the telecom industry.

A majority in the Senate, with the backing of Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee chair Jay Rockefeller, approved a bill which would extend many provisions of the electronic surveillance law that recently expired. That legislation, which was opposed by a small group of liberal senators, would also give the telecoms the retroactive immunity they are seeking.

The administration and the Senate majority pressured the House to go along with the Senate bill. But the House approved a version which contained additional civil-liberties protections-and omitted any retroactive immunity for the telecoms. That left Congress deadlocked; the White House has indicated President Bush will veto any version of a new surveillance law that does not include the immunity provision.

The letter from Mukasey and McConnell does not spell out precisely what kind of new intelligence operations are being thwarted because of the congressional impasse. And administration critics, including Rep. Reyes, have recently accused the administration and its supporters of exaggerating the threat to current intelligence activities caused by the congressional standoff.

Administration critics note that eavesdropping operations undertaken under the intel law which just lapsed are allowed to continue for 12 months after they were first authorized. However, administration officials claim the telecoms are nervous that the situation leaves them with insufficient protection against new private lawsuits.

In a statement released late Friday, Reyes, Rockefeller and several other Democrats lashed out at the White House's tactics. "Further politicizing the debate, the administration today announced that they believe there have been gaps in security since the Protect America Act expired. They cannot have it both ways; if it is true that the expiration of the PAA has caused gaps in intelligence, then it was irresponsible for the President and congressional Republicans to openly oppose an extension of the law. Accordingly, they should join Democrats in extending it until we can resolve our differences."

Cuba's National Assembly convenes to choose successor to Castro

BY FRANCES ROBLES
Ofelia Ortega Suárez is an evangelical church pastor from Matanzas. Juan Antonio Borrego Díaz is a young blogger and Sancti Spiritus newspaper editor, while Antonio Castañeda is a musician and Santeria priest from Havana.

The three are among the nearly 400 new faces in Cuba's National Assembly whose 614 members Sunday will choose Fidel Castro's successor as president. A full 72 percent are too young to have any recollection of capitalism. Only a third are incumbents.

This younger and more diverse National Assembly is likely, experts say, to elect Castro's brother and Cuba's Defense Minister Raúl Castro as president, clearing the way for the kinds of reforms Raúl has promised during his 19-month tenure as interim leader to address the island's myriad economic problems.

''For the next five years, they are the ones who are going to deal with changes and reforms,'' said Domingo Amuchástegui, a former member of the Cuban intelligence services who now lives in Miami. ``I think it's important to have that younger generation and people from different sectors. They bring to the National Assembly a different sense of what is needed to be done.

``They are closer to real life.''

Many Cuba observers dismiss the assembly, formed in 1976, as a rubber-stamp mockery of a legislature. Its members run unopposed, they meet only twice a year for a handful of days and they vote by consensus. No bill has ever been voted down.

Although there have been legislative shakeups before, most agree that the sweeping transformation last month of its composition represents a significant step toward inclusion, and shows that the Cuban government under Raúl is more willing to embrace change. And if Raúl, as many predict, really opens the communist system to more economic reforms and public debate, the assembly could gain a stronger voice.

About half of those elected in January had been nominated by government-controlled organizations such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Federation of Cuban Women and Cuba's lone labor union.

The other half were elected to the assembly in municipal votes, via a complicated process that began late last year with block-by-block nominations by show of hands.

The result: 42 percent are women and 39 percent are black or racially mixed, the government says. Sixty percent were born after the revolution, and another 12 percent were 10 or younger when Castro won power in 1959.

FRUSTRATED POPULACE

Their work has never been more important. The government faces a population frustrated over low wages and rising food prices. Many products can only be bought with Cuba's dual currency, the convertible peso that is out of reach for most.

Fidel Castro warned in a 2005 speech that the revolution could implode if the hearts and minds of young people are lost because of economic hardship.

''If you are from Las Tunas, a woman, who is black and young and raising children, you are going to be more in touch with the issues than the old guard,'' said Katrin Hansing, visiting associate director of Florida International University's Cuban Research Institute. ``That woman is more in touch precisely because she lives in the provinces, because she's young and because she's black.''

Although Raúl Castro is believed to have younger reform-minded supporters, such as Vice President Carlos Lage, hardline loyalists such as Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque remain in positions of power.

Peter Roman, author of People's Power: Cuba's Experience with Representative Government, says the key aspect of the new assembly is ''the representation of the municipalities,'' he said. ``That's the dynamic part.''

Roman, whose book praises the Cuban electoral process as street-level democracy, said it's true the assembly has never rejected a bill in its 20-year history, but that's because bills pass through a heated committee process. Amuchástegui, the former intelligence agent, also contends the legislature is no rubber stamp.

The University of Miami's Andy Gomez, a senior fellow at the Institute of Cuban and Cuban American Studies, said most laws are presented to the assembly for ratification from the highest levels of government.

''How much will they have in terms of power? None,'' Gomez said. ``But symbolically, having younger people in there is a message.''

The assembly's composition has never mattered before. While it has elected a new Council of State and a Council President -- in effect the country's president -- every five years, this is the first time that Fidel Castro will not be the surefire winner.

Castro, 81, who held the title of prime minister during his first 17 years in power, assumed the title of council president when the National Assembly was created. Raúl Castro, 76, has been at the helm since July 2006 when his brother fell victim to the unnamed illness that would lead him only last week to step down permanently.

And so the assembly -- whose members include Elián González's father Juan Miguel González and Magalí Llort, the mother of convicted Cuban spy Fernando González -- will gather at the Convention Palace in Havana at 10 a.m. Sunday to replace the man who has ruled Cuba for almost five decades.

A special nominating commission has spent the past month consulting all the members on their preferred nominees for leadership posts in the assembly and the Council of State.

''I have never witnessed anything like that before,'' Amuchástegui said.

Among those questioned were Matanzas representative Ortega, the first evangelical Presbyterian minister to serve in the legislature in a country that was officially atheist for 30 years. Castañeda is the assembly's first Santeria high priest.

But true democracy appears to remain a long way off. The leadership nominating committee reached its decision behind closed doors, and the assembly members are not expected to question the slates it will submit. Hansing also noted that the new members are no doubt government loyalists.

''These people have been supporters of the system forever,'' she said. ``They didn't just appear out of nowhere.''

ALLIES OF RAUL

Dissident journalist Guillermo Fariñas said he was struck by the number of assembly members who are viewed as closer to Raúl Castro than to his brother, among them Llort.

''What you see is series of generals and colonels and people very close to Raúl Castro,'' he said by telephone from Villa Clara.

A review of the biographies posted on a government website shows 19 of the military's high command are in the assembly, including its chief of intelligence.

''The only change you'll see Sunday is in the Council of State,'' Fariñas said. ``But who knows. There could be surprises.''

White House intensifies spying standoff

Bush administration officials tell congressional Democrats their failure to act has made the U.S. 'more vulnerable to terrorist attack.'
By Greg Miller
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — The U.S. attorney general and intelligence director warned Friday that the nation has lost potentially critical intelligence during the last week because telecommunications companies cut their cooperation with the government after a controversial espionage law was allowed to lapse.

In an unusually blunt letter to Congress, Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell said the country "is now more vulnerable to terrorist attack and other foreign threats" because lawmakers failed to act.

The dire language marked a significant escalation in the standoff between the Bush administration and congressional Democratic leaders over legislation that would expand the government's eavesdropping authorities and protect telecommunications companies from facing lawsuits for cooperating.

Democrats denounced the letter, saying the administration was "further politicizing the debate" even as it has refused to allow the extension of existing authorities while the House and Senate work out differences on a complex new bill.

"They cannot have it both ways," four Democrats said in a written statement. "If it is true that the expiration of the [Protect America Act] has caused gaps in intelligence, then it was irresponsible for the president and congressional Republicans to openly oppose an extension of the law."

The statement was issued by the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees: Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas and Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan.

The lawmakers said their staffs had been meeting throughout the week to seek compromise on an issue that has polarized Congress since it was disclosed more than two years ago -- that President Bush had secretly launched a program of eavesdropping without court warrants on international calls and e-mails by U.S. citizens.

Since then, the administration has pushed Congress to pass legislation that would allow the government to continue the wiretapping operation -- which Bush launched shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks -- under the supervision of a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The House and Senate have passed separate versions of the legislation and remain at odds over whether to grant retroactive liability protection to phone companies that took part in the espionage operation before it was publicly disclosed.

AT&T, Verizon and other major carriers are facing about 40 lawsuits filed by consumers and civil liberties groups alleging violations of wiretapping and privacy laws. The suits seek billions of dollars in damages.

Both chambers of Congress have agreed to inoculate the companies against future lawsuits.

But the House has resisted retroactive immunity, with some members saying the companies should not be protected for taking part in what at the time may have been an illegal spying operation.

Laws passed in the late 1970s barred U.S. intelligence agencies from eavesdropping on the conversations of Americans without court warrants.

In their letter, McConnell and Mukasey said that the telephone companies have withdrawn their cooperation this week out of fear that their assistance may no longer be legally protected.

"We have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress' failure to act," the two said. "Because of this uncertainty, some partners have reduced cooperation."

The letter, addressed to Reyes, also was sent to Rockefeller; Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee; and Sen. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, the senior GOP member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In particular, McConnell and Mukasey said, certain companies have "delayed or refused compliance with our requests to initiate new surveillance of terrorist and other foreign intelligence targets."

Bush administration officials refused to say which companies were resisting, or even how many wiretapping requests had been issued or rejected.

McConnell has testified to Congress that phone company cooperation is crucial to U.S. intelligence agencies' ability to track Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. That is because much of the world's phone and e-mail traffic flows across data networks inside the United States, including calls or messages that begin and end overseas.

Most of the companies involved "intend to cooperate for the time being," McConnell and Mukasey said. But "they have expressed deep misgivings about doing so in light of the uncertainty and have indicated that they may well cease to cooperate if the uncertainty persists."

The government can still intercept such communications without passage of the new law, but officials said the process is cumbersome because a warrant is required in each case. Delays in obtaining those warrants mean crucial calls or e-mails could be missed, officials said.

The magnitude of the problem has been a source of dispute, because even though the Protect America Act expired Feb. 16, eavesdropping activities initiated under its authorities can continue for a year before they have to be reauthorized by the FISA court.

In a conference call with reporters, senior Bush administration officials said the government had issued a series of requests to the phone companies over the last week, seeking to put newly identified foreign terrorism suspects under surveillance.

"Some have been delayed, and some have just not been complied with," said one of the officials, who said they were authorized to speak only on the condition of anonymity.

The official said that the companies' concern "is that maybe . . . immunity is no longer viable now that the Protect America Act has expired. We don't believe that's the case. But that's something the attorneys for various companies that are assisting us are looking closely at."

The officials struggled to explain why the administration would allow crucial intelligence gaps to emerge rather than accept the Democrats' offer to pass a stopgap measure that would extend the existing authorities for 15 days while congressional talks continue.

In rejecting such an extension, Bush has said Congress has had ample time to reach compromise.

"Our concern is we're just going to be going into the same pattern over and over again," said one of the officials on the call. "The longer that this is temporary, the more disruptive it is to our operations."

White House says phone wiretaps back on "for now"

February 23, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Saturday U.S. telecommunications companies have agreed to cooperate "for the time being" with spy agencies' wiretaps, despite an ongoing battle between the White House and Congress over new terrorism surveillance legislation.

The Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement saying wiretaps will resume under the current law "at least for now."

"Although our private partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light of the ongoing uncertainty and have indicated they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty persists," the statement said.

On Friday U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell said telecommunications firms have been reluctant to cooperate with new wiretaps since six-month temporary legislation expired last weekend. As a result, they told Congress, spy agencies have missed intelligence.

Democrats accused the Bush administration of fear-mongering and blamed it for any gaps.

President George W. Bush has said he would not compromise with the Democratic-led Congress on his demand that phone companies be shielded from lawsuits for taking part in his warrantless domestic spying program.

The measure passed by the Senate would provide retroactive lawsuit immunity to firms which cooperated with warrantless wiretaps that Bush authorized after the September 11 attacks. But the House of Representatives has opposed it, and Democratic leaders of both chambers said they would try to find a compromise.

Democratic leaders of congressional intelligence and judiciary committees issued a statement on Friday saying they were committed to passing new legislation and urged Bush to support an extension of the temporary law. Bush has said he would hold out for a permanent overhaul of the 1978 surveillance law.

Democrats' Chances to Alter Iraq Strategy Dwindling

Reid Says Next Showdown May Not Occur Until New War-Funding Request, Perhaps Early Next Year

By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 29, 2007; A10

Senate Democrats' failure to reach agreement with wavering Republicans on legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq forced party leaders to concede yesterday that they are running low on options for altering President Bush's war strategy this year.

The breakdown, coming at the end of days of debate over defense policy legislation, makes it increasingly likely that Congress will conclude 2007 without passing a single Iraq bill of policy-altering significance. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said yesterday that the next big Iraq showdown could come over an emergency war-funding bill that may not be considered until early next year, as he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) turn their attention to the domestic policy front, where Democrats' prospects for success are brighter.

"We've done a lot of talking," Reid said of efforts to attract GOP votes. But the bottom line is: "People either want something or nothing."

One of the few remaining windows for Democrats on Iraq is on the spending front. Until war funding is secured for the next year, Democrats say that action to force Bush to change course is still possible, said Reid spokesman Jim Manley.

The latest attempt to find consensus fizzled late Thursday. Last week, Democrats failed to pass a proposal to bring home most troops by next June and to narrow the U.S. mission. But Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (Mich.) still held out hope that at least 10 Republicans -- enough to break a filibuster by Bush's GOP allies -- might agree to a more flexible June goal.

Both sides were optimistic about a deal until Republican negotiators demanded that the timetable be pushed from June to sometime after the 2008 presidential election. Levin balked.

"It introduces a political element, putting it into the next administration," Levin explained. "For a lot of Democrats, that's inappropriate."

Levin and the Republican negotiators, Sens. George V. Voinovich (Ohio) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), tried to blend several proposals that have been floating around, including the Democratic plan to specify a withdrawal deadline, new Pentagon reporting requirements that some GOP moderates have been advocating and a bipartisan initiative -- co-sponsored by Alexander -- to turn last year's recommendations by the Iraq Study Group into law.

It was Alexander's idea to extend the time frame, to match the 15-month transition period that the study group recommended. But even with the additional six months, Voinovich could not promise Levin a large number of Republican votes. And when Levin shopped it around in his caucus, the response was an emphatic no.

The House and Senate will debate fiscal 2008 defense spending in the coming weeks. Although war opponents are expected to renew their bid to restrict Iraq funding as part of the debate, some Democratic leaders are cool to the idea of holding up the entire Pentagon budget. The administration is expected to make an additional request for Iraq funding, but action on that package could be delayed until February. "I think that's where you're going to see the next dogfight," Reid predicted.

War opponents are bound to be disappointed if the Iraq debate slows down. Sen. Russell Feingold (Wis.), an outspoken antiwar Democrat, even protested a stopgap resolution approved late Thursday that would keep government funds flowing beyond the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year, while Congress completes work on the next fiscal year's spending bills. The resolution, Feingold noted, would also extend Iraq funding.

"We need to keep the federal government operating and make sure our brave troops get all the equipment and supplies they need, but we should not be giving the president a blank check to continue a war that is hurting our national security," Feingold said.

But at a certain point, Levin said yesterday, Democrats must concede to political reality. Despite voter disapproval with both the war and Bush, only a handful of Senate Republicans have switched sides on binding Iraq legislation.

"We can't break a filibuster," said Levin, referring to the 60-vote threshold that GOP leaders have demanded on Iraq bills. "We spent a lot of time on it. We just didn't succeed."

Democrats did attach three Iraq-related amendments to the defense bill this week: a statement of support for a federalist-style political system; the creation of an independent commission to investigate contracting abuse; and the easing of restrictions for Iraqi refugees.

The party's liberal base would prefer that Democrats take a more defiant approach, refusing to yield to Republican procedural objections even if it brings the Senate to a standstill.

But Levin said: "There's so much that we can do here, in the majority, that we can succeed on. Unless there's some prospect that we can accomplish our goal, it seems to me it would be almost a sign of weakness" to draw out the Iraq fight on the floor. "I don't think we have to prove our commitment to bringing an end to this war, changing the mission," he added.

For a Democrat, Options in Iraq Could Be Few

Hopefuls Seen as Unlikely To Effect Rapid Change

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 29, 2007; A01

In their debate Wednesday night in Hanover, N.H., none of the three top Democratic presidential candidates would promise to have the U.S. military out of Iraq by January 2013 -- more than five years from now.

"I think it would be irresponsible" to state that, said Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

"I cannot make that commitment," added former senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

And Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) put it simply when she outlined the dilemma that Democratic presidential aspirants face on Iraq. "It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting," the party's front-runner said.

After President Bush's announcement this month of a limited troop drawdown and a continuation of the "surge" strategy through next summer, the key question for centrist Democrats in the presidential race is no longer whether U.S. forces will remain in Iraq but what size, mission and length a post-buildup, post-Bush force would take on. Even if the Democratic hopefuls decline to offer specifics, some of the people mentioned as possible defense secretaries under a Democratic White House offer a vision of a U.S. presence in Iraq that does not differ markedly from that of the Bush administration.

"There's a fairly narrow band of choice here, a relatively limited set of options," said David Kilcullen, an Australian counterinsurgency expert who has advised Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "I think a Democratic or Republican administration will be doing fairly similar things."

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said recently that he hopes to bring the U.S. presence in Iraq down to about 100,000 troops by the end of 2008, eventually falling to a long-term presence of roughly 40,000 to 60,000 troops, whose job would be mainly to back up Iraqi forces.

John J. Hamre, a Clinton-era Pentagon official mentioned as a possible successor to Gates in a Democratic administration, said in an e-mail that when a new president takes over in January 2009, the U.S. mission will include "force protection, overwatch (of Iraqi security operations), continued training/mentoring of Iraqi security forces and direct action operations against known bad guys." There is likely to be some patrolling by U.S. forces in Baghdad," Hamre noted, "but it should be considerably reduced."

At that point, said Richard Danzig, a former Navy secretary also on the Democratic short list for defense secretary, the next president should talk to Iraqi officials about setting a target date for leaving Iraq but make it clear that the date is negotiable, depending on the political progress Iraqis make. Bush has fiercely resisted setting such a timetable. Danzig, an adviser on defense issues for Obama, emphasized that he was speaking for himself.

A third possibility for defense secretary, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a former officer in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, said he agrees with the Democratic candidates that "the reality is that there is a likelihood of an American presence" in Iraq in 2013 but added that he hopes it would be a small, noncombat force. As for the mission under a new administration, Reed said the U.S. military will not have enough troops in Iraq to continue the current effort to protect the population and will have to focus on training, counterterrorism and perhaps border security missions.

Whoever the next president is, said retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, "the war in Iraq will go on at least for two or three years into the new president's first term."

The first clue to determining how many U.S. troops will be in Iraq in 2009 -- and what they will be doing -- will come in the spring. As the buildup ends and U.S. forces begin to draw down, the United States will assess whether Iraqi forces are able to take over providing security. The U.S. strategy of "clear, hold and build" depends on Iraqi troops and police ultimately being able to "hold." But there has been little evidence so far of their ability to do so in areas that are being contested, analysts note, especially in and around Baghdad.

"Recent U.S. government estimates state that the Iraqi security forces will not be capable of taking on this mission for at least 18 to 24 months," said Nora Bensahel, a security analyst at Rand Corp., "and I think there are reasons to be skeptical about this forecast, since that's the same time frame that U.S. government estimates included in both 2005 and 2006."

The second unknown is whether the U.S. standoff with Iran escalates, or other regional problems emerge that knock the U.S. effort in Iraq off track. "Wild cards that could alter the present trajectory include escalating tensions with Iran and/or Syria, as well as the physical or political meltdown of the Iraqi government in Baghdad," said Patrick Cronin, director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank in London.

Finally, the third factor is the outcome of the U.S. presidential election in November 2008, with the vote likely to be shaped in part by how the United States stands in Iraq.

After years of worrying about "mission creep" -- that is, the expansion of its tasks -- the U.S. military will have to adjust to a shrinking mission. The ambitious goals that the Bush administration set forth in 2003 of turning Iraq into a beacon of democracy for the Middle East have been set aside, replaced by the more limited aim of a stable Iraq that does not fall apart, does not engage in a full-blown civil war and does not spill over into a regional strife.

As the force is cut, said Kilcullen, the U.S. mission will have to change to training, advising, supplying and backing up Iraq forces. The hardest part of this transition for U.S. officials will be giving up control of operations, he predicted: Once the United States sets broad parameters, it will have to defer to Iraqi officials on issues such as timetables and nature of the operations to be carried out.

But if the mission is narrowed too much or too fast, then the U.S. position in Iraq could deteriorate rapidly, some military experts argue. In this view, the U.S. military only recently has begun to get the strategy right, by moving troops off big bases and into the population.

If the United States "reduces troop strength" and "withdraws from living with the population," worried retired Army Col. Howard Clark, a veteran policy planner, it would be quite possible to have a full-blown civil war emerge, with Sunnis fighting Shiites and the Kurds combating Turkish forces in the north. This could be followed by Iranian intervention on behalf of the Shiites and Saudi intervention to support the Sunnis. Some possible consequences, he noted, would be spiraling oil prices, destabilization of Pakistan and further problems in Afghanistan.

Even if it goes well, Americans may not be happy with the result, officers who have served in Iraq warned. If the empowerment of local tribes and militias continues, the country may break up. And if it does not, said one Army lieutenant colonel who has served two tours in Iraq, "the most likely outcome is a Shia tyranny of the majority, either with our assistance or despite our opposition."

Ultimately, however, it appears now that no matter who inhabits the White House, the United States may be resolved -- or resigned -- to an enduring presence in Iraq. "America has taken a deep breath," Kilcullen said, "looked into the abyss of pulling out, and decided, 'Let's not do it yet.' "

Bush and Top Aides Visit Iraq Days Ahead of Assessment

By DAVID S. CLOUD

AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq, Sept. 3 — President Bush and his top national security advisers made a surprise joint visit to Iraq today for talks with Gen. David H. Petraeus and top Iraqi officials a week before the American commander is scheduled to deliver a long-awaited assessment of the situation in Iraq.

Administration officials said Mr. Bush decided to travel to Iraq along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to meet face-to-face with General Petraeus and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki because it was his last chance to do so before completing a review of his Iraq strategy.

“He has assembled essentially his war cabinet here, and they are all convening with the Iraqi leadership to discuss the way forward,” the Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell, said. “This will be the last big gathering of the president before the president makes a decision on the way forward,” he added, noting that Mr. Bush would l leave here for a trip to Australia to meet with leaders of Asian and Pacific nations.

It was the first time Mr. Bush was in Iraq with his top advisers, and his third trip to the country.

Ms. Rice and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made a joint visit to Baghdad last year, shortly after Mr. Maliki took office.

Mr. Bush held talks today with his commanders and then he and the American delegation met with Iraqi officials including Mr. Maliki and President Jalal Talabani. The group sat across a narrow conference table facing one another.

Mr. Talabani had been delayed getting to the meeting, but when he arrived, Mr. Bush greeted him warmly, according to Mr. Morrell.

“Mr. President. Mr. President. The president of the whole country,” Mr. Bush said to Mr. Talabani, before shaking his hand and sharing a traditional Middle Eastern greeting.

Mr. Bush’s one-day stop at this desert air base in Anbar Province underscored the administration’s intention as part of the strategy review to bolster support for the Sunni Arab region, where former insurgents are increasingly cooperating with American forces.

But the dramatic meeting also had a clear political goal — to shift the focus this week away from Congress, where a series of hearings on reports critical of the progress of the administration strategy are planned, and to buttress White House assertions that its efforts in Iraq are beginning to produce results.

Administration officials rejected the idea that the trip was a publicity stunt ahead of the reports.

“There are some people who might try to derive this trip as a photo opportunity,” the White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said. “We wholeheartedly disagree.”

“This is an opportunity for the president to meet with his commander on the ground and his ambassador on the ground while they are in fact all on the ground together,” Ms. Perino said. “It’s also a chance for him to meet with Prime Minister Maliki and other national government leaders. And he will be able to look Prime Minister Maliki in the eye and talk with him about the progress that is starting to happen in Iraq, what we hope to see and the challenges that remain.”

After meeting with top military advisers last week in Washington, Mr. Bush approved an acceleration of a new program to intensify assistance directly to Sunni areas of Iraq, officials have said. Mr. Gates’s trip seemed aimed at least in part in explaining the American concept for stepped-up assistance to officials in Iraq’s government, who have raised strong concerns about the idea of assisting their Sunni rivals, before it is announced publicly.

General Petraeus is widely expected to ask that additional troops sent to Iraq earlier this year be kept in place at least until next spring, a course Mr. Bush appears to support. But a senior Defense Department official said the gathering would be “instrumental” in formulating recommendations to Mr. Bush on possible adjustments to the plan. The move to increase aid to Sunni groups is one example of the adjustments that are coming out of the strategy review, and the move reflects frustration that Mr. Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government has not taken advantage of improvements in security to move forward on reconciliation with Sunni rivals.

But the administration has seized on the Sunni tribes’ sudden willingness to cooperate in fighting the homegrown extremist group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a promising political development that they hope will convince members of Congress, especially Republicans who have been calling for withdrawals from Iraq, that political progress is happening, albeit from the ground up, not from the top down, as the administration strategy initially envisioned.

While backing Sunni groups is an attempt to circumvent Mr. Maliki, Bush administration officials stress that the goal is not to undermine his government but to broaden its support.

Mr. Maliki has been deeply worried that outreach to Sunni tribes, which has included American support for setting up armed neighborhood watch groups in Anbar and other Sunni areas, amounted to backing his enemies.

But the senior Defense Department official said the American aid to the Sunni tribes comes with “a quid pro quo” — the need to recognize the legitimacy of the Mr. Maliki’s government in Baghdad.

The official added that spending in Anbar province by military commanders would be increased.

Mr. Bush and his cabinet members were also scheduled to meet today with Sunni tribe leaders from Anbar, many of whom until recently opposed the American presence. Mr. Maliki and other top Iraqi officials had scheduled a rare trip into the Sunni heartland for the talks with the American delegation but it was unclear if Mr. Maliki intended to hold talks with the Sunnis during his visit.

Mr. Bush and Gates planned to press the two sides to move forward on reconciliation and to discuss such steps as provincial elections that are aimed at drawing the former Sunni insurgents into a closer relationship with Mr. Maliki, the senior Defense Department official traveling with Mr. Gates said.

“One of the great concerns many have is that it not be a temporary marriage of convenience,” he said, referring to the growing American relationship with Sunni tribes. The goal, he added, was to ensure that “Sunnis in Anbar are drawing closer to the central government.”

Aides said that Mr. Bush and Mr. Gates also wanted to speak face-to-face with General Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador to Iraq, as he considers recommendations for adjusting strategy in Iraq.

The high-level visit was conducted with extraordinary security precautions. American officials said the measures, which included withholding disclosure of Mr. Gates’s arrival after Mr. Bush was on the ground, were necessary because of the top officials from Iraq and from the United States who were present. Although Mr. Gates arrived on a C-17 transport plane, Mr. Bush traveled on Air Force One, which could be seen sitting on the air base’s baking tarmac.

There had been intense speculation among the White House press corps that the president would make such a trip either on his way to or back from Australia, and the White House went to great lengths to keep the secret. The president slipped out of a side entrance at the White House on Sunday evening. Instead of taking Marine One, the presidential helicopter, he was driven to Andrews Air Force base with just one car accompanying him, as opposed to the two dozen or so vehicles that ordinarily make up a presidential motorcade.

Mr. Bush typically takes a small, rotating, pool of reporters with him aboard Air Force One. The members of the pool assigned to travel aboard the president’s plane to Sydney were summoned to the White House over the weekend for face-to-face meetings with Mr. Bush’s top press aides.

They were told to show up at Andrews Sunday between 6p.m. and 6:30p.m., not this morning, as had been publicly announced. Reporters were permitted to inform their spouses and just one editor, who could tell no one else, and were asked not to pass the information by cellphone. When they boarded Air Force One inside a hangar, not on the tarmac, as is typical, the shades were drawn and Secret Service agents took their pager devices and cellphones until shortly before the plane landed in Iraq.

The president is expected to spend about six hours on the ground in Iraq before leaving for Australia.

Though Mr. Bush and General Petraeus had met as recently as last week by video hookup, the seemingly last-minute nature of the trip and the array of top officials from both governments who attended did not mean there were deep disagreements among President Bush’s top advisers about strategy in Iraq, they said.

“Nothing beats the opportunity to look Dave Petraeus in the eye and Ambassador Crocker and say, ‘What do you think? What do we need to do?’” said a senior Defense official traveling with Mr. Gates.

Mr. Bush has been touting developments in Anbar recently and wanted to meet with Sunni sheiks who have formed alliances with the United States this year. Some of the tribal leaders he is expected to meet with were likely involved in operations against American forces before switching their allegiances.

“You don’t reconcile with your friends; you reconcile with your enemies,” Mr. Morrell said, explaining the decision to met with the tribal leaders.

The meetings were held at Al Asad air base rather than in Baghdad because Mr. Bush wanted to see first hand the progress in Anbar, he said, although the president is not scheduled to leave the base, a sprawling complex far from the province’s population centers.

The air base, the second largest in Iraq, is a parched, sunny, dusty place. Troops here said temperatures today were about average for this time of year—about 115 degrees.

After his tarmac greeting, Mr. Bush, wearing a dark blue short-sleeved shirt and slacks, posed for pictures before being taken by motorcade to a building where a marine gave him a short briefing.

Mr. Bush leaned slightly forward, both hands on a makeshift table, and listened to the marine, with a pointer in hand, as he gave an overview.

The marine said there was progress being made with Iraqi security forces in Anbar, handling more urban duties, allowing the Marines to hunt for insurgents, according to a pool report. But he also said that there is a problem with the short home leaves — five months — which he said strains training, not to mention family life.

“Morale? How is morale?” Mr. Bush was overhead asking.

“Very high, sir,” the marine responded.

Iraq Reports To Be Released Soon

• The August 23 Iraq NIE
  On August 23, the Director of National Intelligence released a mixed National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reflecting some successes, notably cleavage between Sunnis and Al Qaeda in Iraq, but an overall lack of political breakthroughs necessary for success in Iraq.
  
  Both sides of the Iraq debate have used this report as ammunition.


• The GAO Report
  Karen DeYoung and Tom Ricks of The Washington Post were given an advance copy of this "strikingly negative" report from the GAO, a legislative branch auditing and research agency, by a government official afraid the report's conclusions would be watered down when it is officially released.
  
  It is due to be released on Tuesday, September 4.
  
  The GAO Report was prepared at Congressional direction and GAO does not have the leeway other required reporters have in stating that Iraq's government has made "progress" toward specific benchmarks. It mus make a "success" or "failure" determination on each benchmark.
  
  Stung by the harsh conclusions of the report, the Bush Administration has pushed back, emphasizing the report's limitations.
  
  An interesting point of cleavage highlighted by the report is the backsliding of formerly relatively independent Iraqi military units. These have declined from 10 to 6. Some U.S. military leaders in Iraq have stated that training and building of Iraqi forces is a slow-building success. But General James Dubik, who is is in charge of U.S. training efforts, has stated that the problems of Iraqi forces are significant and should not be taken lightly.


• The Jones Report
  This report was prepared by a group headed by recently-retired SACEUR and Marine Corps Commandant James L. Jones, consisting of 14 former military and law enforcement officers.
  
  One of the group's major recommendations has been a complete reformation of the Iraqi National Police and Iraqi local police. The Iraqi police have been cited by nearly everyone as an Iraqi institution that has been thoroughly infiltrated by sectarian militias. In Shiite areas, the police are known to actively collaborate with militias against U.S. forces.
  
  Democrats will certainly seize on this reported failure, though the Department of Defense and Bush Administration have stated that they will not give up on the existing Iraqi police. The report is due to be presented to Congress next week, and Administration officials were briefed on it last week.


• The Petraeus Report
  It is hard to overstate the extent to which the Bush Administration's efforts continue fighting the war in Iraq are tied to the credibility of one man, General David Petraeus. To a significant extent, Congress has held off on a full-throated effort to end the war in Iraq until General Petraeus has an opportunity to implement his new counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq.
  
  Next week, General Petraeus is to report on the successes and failures of American strategy in Iraq under his leadership. A poor report will give impetus to Democratic efforts to end the war. A positive report will give the Bush Administration war effort a stronger hand.
  
  Petraeus is to testify to Congress along with our Ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, on September 10.
  
  At present, the only thing that has been agreed by everyone in Congress and the White House is that they will consider the Petraeus Report very important. Due to its importance, the report is likely to be significantly influenced by the White House and will be viewed skeptically by Democrats in Congress.


• The Report To Petraeus
  A military official and intelligence officer reported to General Petraeus in an internal assessment that concludes the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government is truly unenthusiastic about a government of national unity. Apparently Petraeus receives a reports like this frequently. It reflects the intellectual struggle within the military to define and address the problem we face in Iraq.


• Conclusion
  None of these reports is likely to change many minds. But these reports will be the ammunition that Congress, the White House, press and the public will have to get used to using over the momentous Iraq debates likely to come during the next couple of months.

Reports add fuel to Iraq debate

Updates on the war are expected to pit Bush and Congress; they may also redefine military and political strategy.
By Doyle McManus
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 2, 2007

WASHINGTON — President Bush and the Democratic-led Congress are heading for another collision over the war in Iraq this month, framed by a flurry of conflicting assessments of military and political progress, and culminating in an impassioned debate over how soon U.S. forces should be withdrawn.

Even before the debate has formally begun, officials on both sides are forecasting its likely course: The general who commands U.S. forces in Iraq will report that the current increase in troops has improved security, and will ask that it continue. Democrats will try again to impose a timetable for a withdrawal but acknowledge they don't have the votes in the Senate. Bush will continue to resist pressure for a major change in strategy but will weigh what aides call "adjustments."

On one level, the battle may merely look like a rerun of the fiery but abortive one that Congress staged only two months ago, when Senate Democrats failed to pass measures that would have forced Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.

"It's going to be 'Groundhog Day,' " predicted Mark Helmke, an aide to Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), who has criticized Bush's handling of the war.

But there could still be surprises.

Republican members of Congress and some Bush aides have urged the president to begin laying out a new strategy for next year, when the buildup of troops is scheduled to end.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who was widely criticized for cutting off debate on compromise measures in July, now says he is willing to seek a middle ground.

And even if the clash doesn't lead to an immediate change in policy, it may produce -- as a side effect -- an important debate over the future of the war. Administration officials say they recognize that the buildup cannot be sustained next year as the Army and Marine Corps run out of available troops, that political progress in Baghdad has fallen short and that U.S. strategy in Iraq must be redefined.

But the central elements of that strategy remain unresolved: How fast will the post-buildup drawdown be? How far will it go? How will the mission of the remaining forces be defined? What kind of Iraqi political order should the administration seek?

"The essential question is: What should our objective in Iraq be today?" said Dennis Ross, who was a Middle East negotiator under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton. "The president says we're going to prevail without saying clearly what the objective is. There are people on the other side who say, 'Let's pull out,' but they need to spell out what happens next if you do. . . . I don't think this will be the center of the debate in September -- everybody has already staked out their turf -- but it ought to be."

A flurry of reports

This month's showdown was set up in the spring, when Congress agreed to fund Bush's additional 22,000 combat troops on the condition that he report by Sept. 15 on whether the offensive was working.

The first reports have already come in. An official "estimate" from the nation's intelligence agencies released last month found that the buildup had produced "uneven improvements in Iraq's security situation" and little or no political progress -- but warned that a U.S. withdrawal would make things worse. A draft report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that Iraq's government had met only three of the 18 benchmarks for political progress that the administration accepted as goals.

This week, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, are to brief the president on their assessments. Next week, they are to deliver them in public before four committees of the House and Senate.

Petraeus and Crocker have frequently said they believe the buildup is making progress. Petraeus "wants to keep as much force on the ground as we possibly can, for as long as we possibly can," said one administration official, who was not authorized to speak on the record and asked not to be identified.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are also scheduled to testify before Congress next week. That could provide a telling contrast. Officials say that Pace and the other members of the Joint Chiefs are worried that continuing the buildup too long would do serious damage to the Army and Marine Corps, and that they favor a significantly smaller force in Iraq next year.

The buildup has increased the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 162,000, from about 130,000 last year. Under current plans, the force will gradually shrink to its pre-buildup level of 130,000 by late next summer.

The debate within the military has been over whether the buildup should continue longer than planned and whether troop levels should be held at 130,000 or reduced to about 100,000. Continuing the buildup could require deployments to be extended; they've already lengthened to 15 months, from an initial 12 months.

Congress will also hear from retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, who has drafted a report on the Iraqi security forces that gives relatively good marks to the Iraqi army but recommends that the National Police be rebuilt from scratch.

Petraeus is key

The White House hopes that a bullish assessment from Petraeus, who is widely respected by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, will swing public opinion in favor of the buildup and prevent further erosion in GOP support for the war.

"There are a number of reports coming out," but only one will provide the complete picture, White House spokesman Tony Snow said last week. "The people who are going to be best able to do that are the folks who live and work there every day, and that would be Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker."

Said Republican political consultant David Winston: "Petraeus will define the starting point. If a lot of people actually sit down and watch his testimony, there could be a public reaction -- and Congress will respond if the public reacts one way or the other."

Meanwhile, Bush used speeches before veterans organizations last month to hammer at three major themes he will return to this month: The "surge" has been a military success; the administration has a new "bottom-up" strategy of promoting regional political leaders to compensate for the apparent failure of its "top-down" effort focused on Prime Minister Nouri Maliki; and the consequences of withdrawal would be disastrous.

Some members of Congress -- and some Bush advisors -- have urged the president to add another theme: that the buildup will soon end, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq will decline, and responsibility for security will increasingly shift to newly trained Iraqi forces.

"The surge can't go on forever; we don't have the manpower to do that," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week. "I think it's entirely possible that the president will lay out a strategy that takes us into a different place."

But so far, there has been no sign that Bush intends to soften his stance by talking publicly about a troop drawdown, even one that looks inevitable. Policymakers fear that announcing even a partial withdrawal will convince U.S. adversaries in Iraq and the Middle East that the United States intends to leave entirely -- giving "the wrong signal," one official said.

In effect, the administration faces a dilemma: It would like to reassure Americans that it will soon begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, but reassure its Iraqi allies that it plans to stay.

Democrats, on the other hand, face a dilemma of their own: Their party's most fervent supporters insist that Congress force Bush to withdraw from Iraq within months. But even with a handful of Republican dissidents joining Democrats, Reid is short of the 60 votes he needs under Senate rules to pass such a controversial bill.

In July, the result was a theatrical all-night debate, an angry standoff, and a controversial decision by Reid to cut off debate without allowing several compromise proposals to come to a vote. At the time, Democratic strategists said they expected public opinion to swing dramatically in their direction over the summer and put considerable pressure on Republicans.

But that didn't happen. Last week, in a change of strategy, Reid told the Washington Post that he was willing to help pass a bipartisan compromise. "I don't think we have to think that our way is the only way," he said.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley acknowledged that it might still be impossible to pass a binding timetable for troop withdrawals. "Until you have 60 votes, you can't force a change in policy," he said. "Sen. Reid remains committed to changing the course in Iraq and bringing the troops home, but there are a number of ways to do that legislatively."

One leading possibility, he said, is a proposal by Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) that would limit the administration's ability to deploy troops by requiring that the duration of soldiers' leaves be at least as long as their most recent deployment. The measure would not explicitly set a timetable for withdrawal, but it would have a similar effect.

"It is another way to get at the issue," Manley said.

In July, Webb's measure won 56 votes, seven of them from Republicans.

The White House has said Bush would veto a bill that included Webb's language.

In the end, an administration official said, the White House is confident that war critics remain far short of the 67 votes they would need to overcome a veto -- and thus unable to tie Bush's hands between now and the end of his term in January 2009.

"There's no indication that President Bush is going to change course in any significant way," said Ross, the former Middle East negotiator and author of a new book, "Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World."

"But we should be negotiating a timetable with the Iraqis. We should be organizing a national reconciliation conference. We should be dealing with the neighbors more seriously," said Ross.

"We still need to answer the question of how we marry our security strategy to a political strategy. It would be nice if this debate in Congress could do that, but it's not very likely."

Oh, Everyone Knows That (Except You)

By ABBY GOODNOUGH

IN this era of blogosphere gossip, viral e-mail and infinite YouTube video archives, the open secret — unacknowledged by its keeper, theoretically hush-hush but widely suspected or known — arguably should be a thing of the past in public life.

But the case of Larry E. Craig, the Idaho senator arrested when an undercover police officer said he made overtures to him for sex, suggests otherwise. Though rumors had long swirled around the conservative Republican senator, the mainstream news media pointedly overlooked them until last week, when Roll Call broke the news of his arrest in June.

Most notably, The Idaho Statesman investigated reports about Mr. Craig for months after a gay blogger published a claim last fall that the senator had had sex with men, but decided against running uncorroborated accusations that Mr. Craig denied and continues to deny. As much traffic as the speculation generated on blogs before Mr. Craig’s arrest, it gained currency — that is, it became a “story” suitable for national publication and broadcast — only when it was backed by an arrest report.

The same went for former Representative Mark Foley of Florida, who was long rumored to be gay but whose open secret was widely exposed only after his sexually explicit electronic messages to former Congressional pages surfaced last fall and forced his resignation. And for Jim McGreevey, the married New Jersey governor whose homosexuality was suspected for years in local circles, but was left pretty much untouched by the news media. Only after disclosing an affair with a man he had once appointed to a six-figure state job did he resign.

Old-fashioned as it seems, there are still tacit rules about when an open secret can remain in its own netherworld, without consequence to the politician who keeps it. But now that any whisper can become a global shout in an instant, how much longer can those rules apply? And should they, anyway?

“What fascinates me is the question of, if it didn’t get out for all this time, what does it mean?” said Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor who now blogs on media and politics on buzzmachine.com. “Does it mean journalists are doing a good job, or does it mean they are doing a bad job?”

Jack Bass, who is on the faculty at the College of Charleston and who co-wrote “Strom: The Complicated Personal and Political Life of Strom Thurmond,” said that at one time, politicians whose open secrets were exposed could use the fact to their advantage, on the theory that they were too outrageous to be believed and reflected badly only on the rumormonger. When a small South Carolina paper declared during Mr. Thurmond’s 1972 re-election campaign that he had fathered a child with a black woman — a fact not confirmed until after his death in 2003 — Mr. Thurmond distributed copies of the provocative headline to sympathetic voters. He won the race.

In the mainstream media, the recent standard for pursuing open secrets has been murky, but generally guided by the notion that private behavior matters when it is at odds with public declarations. Mr. Foley’s bawdy flirtation with pages was fair game not least because he had sponsored legislation seeking to protect children from online predators. Mr. Craig supported a 2006 amendment to the Idaho Constitution barring gay marriage and civil unions and has voted in Congress against gay rights.

Other secrets remain just that, usually because the politician in question has not been perceived as crossing an obvious line into hypocrisy, or he denies the rumors and no one can substantiate them. Perhaps no one wants to. They may not even be true.

“Most so-called open secrets are things we don’t really know the truth about,” said Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of Governing magazine. Regardless, he said: “It’s human nature not to pry into dark corners if you don’t have to. Most people would rather just let things be.”

And so it happens that a lot of states have lawmakers widely known for heavy drinking or sleeping with aides, whether or not the supposition is proved. One state official has long been rumored to be gay, and newspapers have investigated tips on his relationships. But only bloggers have published details, with little traction.

Rick Wilson, a Republican consultant based in Florida who has worked for Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and Katherine Harris, the former Florida congresswoman, among others, said that most states have their own expressions for the circumstances under which open secrets stay secret. In Florida, he said, it’s the “Three County Rule” — no girlfriends within three counties of your home district. In New York, it’s the “Bear Mountain Compact” — nobody talks about what politicians do with their free time once they’ve crossed the Bear Mountain Bridge en route to Albany from points south.

“There’s a similar phrase in every state I’ve worked in,” Mr. Wilson said. “In a lot of cases it’s because the principals involved are powerful, and a lot of the people who know are aides or staff or lobbyists or even reporters who rely on these people for access. So you end up with this feeling of, ‘It’s just business, it’s not affecting their work.’ Once it starts affecting their work, then the rules change.”

Given the power of the Internet, though, the standards could now easily shift with each new salacious rumor reported online. One of the Internet’s main assets, its supporters say, is that it is unfiltered — but that allows sewage leaks of sorts, too.

Mr. Jarvis said bloggers constantly had to hone their judgment about when to ignore a rumor, write their own piece on it or — often the best choice, he said — link to another blog’s report on it.

“I believe we should do what we do best and link to the rest,” he said. “A link is not necessarily an endorsement, but a way to say ‘you go judge for yourself.’ ”

Let the blogger beware, though, of “link bait” — provocative or downright outrageous postings that some bloggers write merely to lure traffic.

As an antidote, a growing number of bloggers make it their chief goal to debunk scurrilous rumors circulating on the Web. Take Snopes.com, which calls itself “the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors and misinformation.” Its section on politics has subcategories devoted to Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama and President Bush.

“It’s not strong enough yet,” Mr. Jarvis said of the online debunking trend, “but it’s part of a new architecture of the Web that is necessary.”

Michael Kinsley, founding editor of the online magazine Slate, said he used to believe that journalism should have an “intermediate standard” for publishing rumors — one that did not require firm corroboration. At one point, he said, he even defended Matt Drudge, the Internet gossip, for saying that 80 percent of what he published was accurate.

He regrets that stance. “I argued at the time that the Internet was the right place for that,” he said. “But at this point, the Internet is the mainstream media, so I think it should be as accurate as possible.”

Mr. Kinsley said attitudes toward open secrets have changed since the 1980’s, when he covered a well-known Democrat’s early presidential bid and quit The New Republic when it wouldn’t publish what he said was a solidly reported piece he wrote about the candidate’s philandering.

“My argument back then was it was elitist censorship for journalists not to publish what they knew about politicians because they were worried voters wouldn’t handle the information with as much sophistication as they thought appropriate,” he said. “Now, it turns out the prudes tend to be the Washington establishment journalists and the people who take a more sophisticated view are the voters.”

As proof, he offered the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which had little long-term effect on Mr. Clinton’s popularity.

Mr. Jarvis echoed that view, saying any expectation that politicians will be moral leaders is naïve. “There is always a taint of, if not corruption, then compromise about them,” he said. “This idea that they are moral leaders is moronic.”

A G.O.P. Senator Charts a Middle Path

By CARL HULSE

MURFREESBORO, Tenn., Aug. 30 — Senator Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican and career consensus seeker, finds himself in a familiar position when it comes to the war in Iraq: somewhere in the middle.

With Congress set to take pivotal votes on the war soon after lawmakers begin returning to Washington on Tuesday, radio advertisements in Knoxville from a group that supports the Bush administration are urging voters to call lawmakers and demand they stand firm on Iraq, a plea that sends as many as 25 telephone calls per day in support of President Bush to Mr. Alexander’s local office.

In Nashville, on the edge of the campus of Vanderbilt University, scores of antiwar demonstrators gathered recently at the entrance to Centennial Park to read solemnly a toll of the war dead and pass out fliers encouraging people to call Tennessee politicians “often” to push for a troop withdrawal. Organizers, who had Mr. Alexander’s office number at the top of their list, considered it a pretty fair turnout for Nashville, the country-and-western capital that practically banished the Dixie Chicks for their anti-Bush comments in 2003.

Mr. Alexander, who is positioned to play a central role in the coming Iraq debate, is in neither camp, leaving both sides frustrated. He is opposed to the fixed withdrawal date sought by many Democrats but has bucked the administration by pushing for a change of mission in Iraq and the formal adoption of the recommendations put forward by the Iraq Study Group.

“I am even more convinced that I am right,” said Mr. Alexander, who was among the many lawmakers from both parties to make a personal inspection of conditions in Iraq during the Congressional recess. Since then, he has traveled his state, laying out his views on the war, raising money for a re-election bid and touching base with constituents at events like a meeting on new financing for math and science in Murfreesboro on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University.

While September once loomed as a likely turning point for the Congressional debate over the debate, the political center of gravity on what to do about Iraq does not appear to have shifted significantly in the month Congress has been away.

The White House has made some headway in convincing lawmakers that the escalation of American troops in Iraq has improved security conditions there, and lawmakers of both parties say they have seen such evidence themselves. Yet there is little sign of the political improvement that was supposed to follow the troop buildup, they say. Some lawmakers who visited Iraq also got a taste of the risks faced by American troops when their aircraft was shot at by an insurgent missile.

Mr. Lamar and many other members of Congress say that though they are struggling with what to do about the war, they do not expect a series of pending government reports to make their job much easier. They say that coming reviews from General David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, the top American government officials in Iraq, will most likely present a mixed picture, and may well clash with independent assessments of the state of Iraq sought by Congress.

“I think the report will be in several directions, but it won’t be a clear path forward,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who is also a potential swing vote on Iraq policy. “Those of us who are concerned about the current policy are going to be facing the same kind of choices and dilemmas we did prior to the report.”

Mr. Alexander, who is up for re-election next year, has served as governor and as president of the University of Tennessee. He was secretary of education under the first President Bush and has twice run for president himself.

As he toured the state recently, Mr. Alexander took the opportunity to explain his approach on Iraq, which essentially boils down to gradually shifting United States forces from direct combat operations to more training and equipping of Iraqi forces, with a concentration on stabilizing the country province by province. He said such a strategy could lead to a significant drawdown of troops within a year or slightly longer.

Despite the gravity of the issue, Mr. Alexander typically had to raise the subject on his own or respond to news media questions on the subject; he was not pressed on it directly by the public even after a detailed talk on Iraq at a crowded Rotary Club meeting in Jackson or his appearance in Murfreesboro.

Representative Jim Cooper, a Democrat who appeared with Mr. Alexander in Nashville, said a certain numbness had set in among Tennesseans when it came to the war. “It is kind of like a low-grade fever,” Mr. Cooper said. “It worries them, but they are so used to the drumbeat of death, destruction and confusion they don’t know how to react.”

Mr. Alexander said it would be a mistake to interpret silence as indifference, however, considering the thousands of Tennessee residents in the National Guard who have served multiple tours in Iraq. And General Petraeus, the former commander of the 101st Airborne Division — which straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky state line — remains a popular figure here.

Mr. Alexander said he did hear from agitated Tennesseans, some of whom had called to tell him he was undermining the president. He hears from the other side as well. At the antiwar vigil near Vanderbilt, protesters dismissed the senator’s stance as posturing, since he does not back a firm withdrawal date.

“It is just cover,” said Myra Sloan, who helped coordinate the event with the group MoveOn.org.

Mr. Alexander shrugs off such criticism, saying that at this stage in his long career he has to do what he believes is best.

And what he says he thinks is best is for Congress and the president is to find common ground on a practical but effective way out of Iraq, and for both sides to back away from partisanship over the war.

His push could find a more receptive audience in the Senate now that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said he might be more open to compromise after blocking a vote on an Iraq plan offered by Mr. Alexander and Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat of Colorado.

“We just can’t keep shouting at one another,” Mr. Alexander said, adding. “I think it is inexcusable for United States senators to be lecturing Baghdad about being in a political stalemate, yet we can’t come up with a consensus ourselves.”

Panel Will Urge Broad Overhaul of Iraqi Police

By DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 — An independent commission established by Congress to assess Iraq’s security forces will recommend remaking the 26,000-member national police force to purge it of corrupt officers and Shiite militants suspected of complicity in sectarian killings, administration and military officials said Thursday.

The commission, headed by Gen. James L. Jones, the former top United States commander in Europe, concludes that the rampant sectarianism that has existed since the formation of the police force requires that its current units “be scrapped” and reshaped into a smaller, more elite organization, according to one senior official familiar with the findings. The recommendation is that “we should start over,” the official said.

The report, which will be presented to Congress next week, is among a number of new Iraq assessments — including a national intelligence estimate and a Government Accountability Office report — that await lawmakers when they return from summer recess. But the Jones commission’s assessment is likely to receive particular attention as the work of a highly regarded team that was alone in focusing directly on the worthiness of Iraq’s army and police force.

Its harsh indictment of a key institution in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s government is likely to be seized on by Democrats in Congress and other critics of the Bush administration’s Iraq strategy as further evidence that a fundamental shift in American policy is required.

However, a new attempt to disband an Iraqi force would also be risky, given the armed backlash that followed the American decision to dissolve the Iraqi Army soon after the invasion of 2003.

Bush administration officials were briefed on the report this week, and they said on Thursday that they were studying its recommendations as part of a strategy review that will include testimony next month from Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.

Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, said that an American effort to retrain the Iraqi police forces was under way. Mr. Morrell said that Pentagon officials believed that such an effort could succeed in removing sectarianism from the ranks without requiring a complete overhaul of the Iraqi force.

“We’re not giving up on the Iraqi National Police,” Mr. Morrell said, adding that the United States and Mr. Maliki’s government were “both committed to seeing it through.”

According to several administration officials, the Jones commission also reached largely positive conclusions about the Iraqi Army’s performance since the start of the new security strategy in Iraq — a sign, several officials said, that a determined American effort to remake Iraqi institutions holds some promise of success.

The officials who agreed to discuss the commission recommendations did so in some cases because they believed that disclosing them publicly would help diffuse their impact and focus attention on the Petraeus-Crocker report. Members of the commission and their aides declined to speak about the report on Thursday.

The Jones commission, which has 14 members, including former or retired military officers, Defense Department officials and law enforcement officers, was created this year by Congress to study the Iraqi security forces and report its findings this fall. Members of the commission made three trips to Iraq and met with senior American commanders and Iraqi officials. National police units were designated earlier this year to play a major role securing neighborhoods after United States and Iraqi Army units cleared the areas of insurgents. But the police have proven to be a tenuous element of that strategy. Rampant sectarianism as well as supply and equipment problems have led to frequent complaints by the American military that the national police have been ineffective or openly allied with Shiite militants in many neighborhoods.

American commanders on the ground in Shiite-controlled areas of Baghdad say that the local police actively subvert efforts to loosen the grip of militias, and in some cases, attack Americans directly. One commander in northwest Baghdad said most bomb attacks against American patrols in the area this spring occurred close to police checkpoints.

Officers involved in training the national police units, which fall under the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry, acknowledged deep problems with the police but said that they had been working methodically for months on retraining national police units to do exactly what the Jones commission was proposing — purge them of Shiite militants and install better leaders.

Officers in Iraq said that during the course of the training effort 9 police brigade commanders and 17 battalion commanders had been relieved of duty for various acts of misconduct, in particular illegal actions of a sectarian nature as well as corruption.

Maj. Joe Pierce, an American Army officer working as an adviser to the Iraqi National Police as part of an Army program, said: ‘’I think there is a clear indication that there needs to be some kind of change in the National Police organization. Most of that has to be led by the Iraqi government, because it is a very top-fed type of system.

“If they want to institute change it really cannot come from, specifically, an outsider. It has to start from within, and if the Iraqi government decides that they need to clean up that organization, change will be a real thing and they can clean it up."

American officers have been trying to fix the police force since before 2006, which the military labeled “the year of the police,” a slogan meant to show their determination to fix what were, even then, longstanding sectarian problems.

In addition to questioning recommendations in the Jones commission report, Pentagon officials on Thursday also challenged the scathing assessment of political and military progress in Iraq by the Government Accountability Office; the officials said they had asked the agency to revise several of its assessments before making the findings public.

In a draft version of the report, the G.A.O. concluded that Iraq had failed to meet 13 of 18 military and political goals agreed to by President Bush. Pentagon officials are now arguing that two of the failing grades should be upgraded to passing, several Pentagon officials said.

The G.A.O. report was ordered by lawmakers as a parallel assessment to the Petraeus-Crocker report and the agency’s presumably more negative portrayal of the conditions in Iraq was immediately seized upon by Democrats as evidence of the need to switch course in Iraq.

The G.A.O. report is not due to be made public in final form until next week. In a statement, Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said that its conclusion provided more support for the case being made by Democrats that “a new direction in Iraq must begin immediately, before more American lives are lost and more taxpayer dollars wasted.”

On Friday President Bush is scheduled to meet with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to discuss Iraq. Pentagon officials said the meeting would offer a chance for Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs, and the chiefs of the military services to provide their views about Iraq, as part of a process they have said is intended to present Mr. Bush with a broad range of views about the way forward in Iraq.

Several of the chiefs are expected to press for steep reductions in the force levels in Iraq over the next year out of concern that the current level of more than 160,000 troops imposes too large a strain on the military and leaves too few troops to respond to other contingencies, officials said.

In taking issue with the G.A.O. report, Pentagon officials said that Iraq had succeeded in delivering the promised number of army units to Baghdad as part of its contribution to the stepped-up security effort there, the officials said. The officials also challenged the G.A.O.’s finding that raised doubts about whether sectarian killings had fallen in Iraq in recent months.

Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, defended the White House approach, saying: “The real question that people have is, What’s going on in Iraq? Are we making progress? Militarily, is the surge having an impact? The answer’s yes.”

Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington, and Sabrina Tavernise from Baghdad.