Histoire > USA > 2006 > President of the United States of America (II)

History > 2006 > USA > White House / President (II)

Peter Brookes

Times July 20, 2006

Bush:

Iraq, terrorism policies keeping U.S. safe

Thu Aug 31, 2006 1:58 PM ET
The New York Times
By Tabassum Zakaria

SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, seeking to fend off growing election-year discontent with the Iraq war, said on Thursday his wars in Iraq and against terrorism were keeping Americans safe.

Bush, whose Republican party is fighting to keep control of Congress in November elections, took on his political critics in launching a new campaign to promote his security policies before the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

"If America were to pull out before Iraq could defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable and absolutely disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies," Bush told veterans at the annual American Legion convention.

"They would have a new sanctuary to recruit and train terrorists at the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions," Bush said.

He said terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and Hizbollah were part of one movement that wanted to prevent democracy from taking hold in the Middle East.

"Some politicians look at our efforts in Iraq and see a diversion from the war on terror," Bush said, but added that this was wrong. "We should all agree that the battle for Iraq is now central to the ideological struggle of the 21st century."

Democrats who are hoping to capture at least one house of Congress in November say Bush's conduct of the wars against Iraq and terrorism has failed. They have accused Republicans of using scare tactics on national security to try and win elections.

"The American people know that five years after September 11, we are not as safe as we should and could be," Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid said. "Iraq is in crisis, our military is stretched thin, and terrorist groups and extremist regimes have been strengthened and emboldened across the Middle East and the world."

Critics have urged Bush to bring home the 140,000 American troops from Iraq, where more than 2,600 U.S. troops have died. No matter how well-intentioned, Bush said, "they could not be more wrong."

Bush has insisted troop levels would be determined by commanders on the ground and that the United States would not leave Iraq until it is able to manage its own security.

Sectarian violence has shown no signs of letting up in Iraq where roadside and suicide bombs continue to wreak havoc.

'SINGLE MOVEMENT'

Bush said the United States must battle international terrorism networks by trying to spread democracy in the Middle East.

"Despite their differences, these groups form the outlines of a single movement -- a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology," he said.

Bush portrayed Iran as a supporter of terrorism and warned Tehran that defying Thursday's U.N. deadline to halt sensitive nuclear work must entail consequences.

He said the September 11 attacks, in which 19 hijackers killed nearly 3,000 people, showed that calm in the Middle East was "only a mirage" and that a lack of freedom had made the region an "incubator" for terrorism.

"American policy in the Middle East comes down to a straightforward choice: we can allow the Middle East to continue on its course -- on the course it was headed before September the 11th -- and a generation from now, our children will face a region dominated by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons," Bush said.

"Or we can stop that from happening by rallying the world to confront the ideology of hate and give the people of the Middle East a future of hope. And that is the choice America has made," he said.

Bush has been traveling to raise money for Republican candidates and spoke at a fund-raiser for Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah on Thursday that was expected to raise about $500,000.

(Additional Reporting by Caren Bohan)

Bush: Iraq, terrorism policies keeping U.S. safe, R, 31.8.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-08-31T175830Z_01_N31423200_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-IRAQ.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-2

Bush: Iran must faces consequences for defiance

Thu Aug 31, 2006 11:58 AM ET
Reuters

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Thursday Iran must face consequences for failing to meet the August 31 deadline for halting sensitive nuclear work.

"It is time for Iran to make a choice," Bush said at a convention of the American Legion U.S. veterans group. "We've made our choice. We will continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iran's defiance and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon."

Bush: Iran must faces consequences for defiance, R, 31.8.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-08-31T155810Z_01_WAT006215_RTRUKOC_0_US-NUCLEAR-IRAN-BUSH.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-3

Bush Shifting Public Focus to Terrorism and Iraq War

August 31, 2006
The New York Times
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

NASHVILLE, Aug. 30 — With the midterm elections approaching, President Bush is beginning an extended tour to draw attention to the threat of terrorism and the Iraq war, quickly pivoting to more comfortable territory after the focus on the Hurricane Katrina anniversary.

Starting with an address to veterans on Thursday, Mr. Bush intends to outline what one adviser described as the “consequences of victory and defeat,” a theme he conveyed here on Wednesday night, when he warned that a hasty departure from Iraq would create a terrorist state in the heart of the Middle East.

Advisers said Mr. Bush would continue his speeches on Iraq and the broader struggle against terrorism for several weeks, keying off the five-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The White House has made national security and Iraq the centerpieces of its strategy to help Republicans retain control of Congress. Nonetheless, as Mr. Bush went to Arkansas and Tennessee on Wednesday to raise money for Republican candidates, he said of his series of speeches, “They’re not political speeches.”

“These are important times, and I seriously hope people wouldn’t politicize these issues I’m going to talk about,” Mr. Bush said after a fund-raiser at a house in Little Rock, Ark.

A short time later, at a fund-raiser here, the president urged an audience to vote for a Republican Senate candidate to help keep the nation safe. Declaring his “message of optimism,” Mr. Bush said he needed colleagues on Capitol Hill who understood the importance of tools like the USA Patriot Act and domestic surveillance to help stop terrorism.

“I need people in the United States Senate standing side by side who understand our most important task is the security of the United States of America,” he said.

“We face an enemy that has an ideology,’’ Mr. Bush continued. “They believe things. The best way to describe their ideology is to relate to you the fact that they think the opposite of the way we think.”

He criticized detractors who have sought to withdraw troops from Iraq, saying that to leave that country “before the job is done” could lead to a much worse terrorist state. But Mr. Bush did not emphasize signs of progress in Iraq as he had in the past.

The focus is shifting as other senior members of the administration have been attacking Democrats over the war and national security in general.

In the most combative instance, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld set off a partisan battle by saying on Tuesday that critics of the war had not “learned history’s lessons” and going on to allude to appeasement of the Nazis in the 1930’s.

The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, called Mr. Rumsfeld’s comments reckless on Wednesday.

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who is in charge of helping elect Democrats to the House, criticized the defense secretary as taking on a political role.

“Donald Rumsfeld should spend less time thinking about the midterm elections and more time figuring out how to clean up the mess this administration made in Iraq,” Mr. Emanuel said in a statement.

It is unclear whether Mr. Bush and his top officials can translate support for combating terrorism into political points in the fall.

Unlike the last two election cycles, when the threat of another attack helped bolster support for Republicans, strategists believe that the increasingly unpopular American presence in Iraq could hurt the governing party.

Mr. Bush’s personal popularity remains low, with his approval ratings hovering at less than 40 percent. That has led some Republicans to distance themselves from the president and the war, raising questions about how Mr. Bush can be an effective advocate in the fall campaign.

On Wednesday, Mr. Bush played the role of fund-raiser relatively quietly.

Traveling from his ranch outside Crawford, Tex., in the morning, he appeared in Arkansas at a private event for Asa Hutchinson, the former Republican congressman who is running for governor.

Mr. Hutchinson is trailing his Democratic opponent, Mike Beebe, the Arkansas attorney general, according to polling data.

The governor’s seat is now held by a Republican, Mike Huckabee, but term limits prevent Mr. Huckabee from running again.

In the Tennessee race to fill the seat held by the departing Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, the Republican, Bob Corker, leads the Democrat, Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., in polls by a slight margin.

Republicans view victory here as critical to retaining control of the Senate. They have a six-seat margin, and at least four seats are considered highly likely to fall to the Democrats.

Organizers said they raised more than $1.5 million from the dinner on Wednesday.

Bush Shifting Public Focus to Terrorism and Iraq War, NYT, 31.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/washington/31bush.html

Bush Declares That U.S. Must Stay the Course

August 31, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

President Bush began a new drive today to rally the American people behind him on the Iraq war and national security, declaring that the United States must stay the course in Iraq because it is a battleground in an epic struggle between democracy and tyranny.

Mr. Bush told the American Legion convention in Salt Lake City that the terrorists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, have much in common with the suicide bombers of Baghdad and the Hezbollah militants who rain rockets on Israel.

Whatever their ethnic or religious differences, Mr. Bush said, they are united in their wish “to turn back the advance of freedom, and impose a dark vision of tyranny and terror across the world.”

Mr. Bush scoffed at his critics’ charges that the American-led campaign in Iraq is a distraction from the real struggle against Al Qaeda terrorists. “That would come as news to Osama bin Laden,” he said, asserting that terrorists from other countries in the Middle East are making their way to Iraq to try to smother the emerging democracy.

The president’s 40-minute address, coming on the heels of similarly aggressive speeches on Tuesday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to the legionnaires and Vice President Dick Cheney to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, underscored the White House’s determination to make the Iraq war a fundamental issue in the November elections.

Doubtless familiar with polls showing increasing numbers of Americans drawing a distinction between the Iraq war and a larger battle against terrorism, Mr. Bush invoked the approaching anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to rebut that view.

That September morning brought to the United States “a war we didn’t ask for, but a war we must wage, and a war we will win,” Mr. Bush said. And if the United States tires of fighting in the streets of Baghdad, he said, “we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.”

“So the United States will not leave until victory is achieved,” Mr. Bush said, warning that more sacrifice lies ahead and that the struggle will be a long one.

Seeking to disarm critics who say that the administration has bungled the war in Iraq, Mr. Bush said he and his commanders are united in their resolve for victory yet flexible enough to adapt tactics to changing conditions. But he said the war, in Iraq and against terrorism generally, will not be won by military might alone.

“Every element of national power” is being marshaled in “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century,” Mr. Bush said.

Unlike Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Bush did not use the word “appease” today. As for those who doubt the wisdom of the war in Iraq, he said, “Many of these folks are sincere and patriotic. They cannot be more wrong.”

The president again described America’s purpose in Iraq as at once idealistic and deeply pragmatic. Victory there will guarantee the Iraqi people freedom, and the country will be a beacon for other freedom-loving peoples in the Middle East, Mr. Bush said. And a free country does not become “an incubator for terrorist movements,” he went on.

Mr. Bush was applauded frequently. He had not only a friendly audience but a friendly setting: he carried Utah over Senator John Kerry by 71 to 29 percent in 2004, for his biggest margin of victory in any state.

The battles in Iraq will one day rank alongside those at Omaha Beach and Guadalcanal as mileposts on the path to liberty, Mr. Bush said. “We know that the direction of history leads toward freedom.”

Bush Declares That U.S. Must Stay the Course, NYT, 31.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/washington/31cnd-bush.html?hp&ex=1157083200&en=c78660b7dd5ce413&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Transcript

President Bush's Speech

August 31, 2006
The New York Times

Following is the transcript of President Bush's speech to the 88th Annual American Legion National Convention, as provided by CQ Transcriptions, Inc.

Thank you all. (Continued applause.) Thank you all very much. Please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. It's great to join you here in one of America's most beautiful cities. I appreciate your hospitality. I'm proud to stand before some of our country's finest patriots, our veterans and their families. (Applause.)

And I'm pleased to call you my fellow legionnaires. (Cheers, applause.) I suspect I may be the only one here, though, from Post 77, Houston, Texas. That's what I thought. (Laughter.) If you're from Post 77, behave yourself here in Salt Lake. (Laughter.) Laura did remind me the other night, though, that a few of my fellow members -- at least I've joined a few of my fellow members in another illustrious organization, the over 60 club. (Laughter.)

For almost 90 years, legionnaires have stood proudly for God and country. (Applause.) From big cities to small towns, the American Legion name brings to mind the best of our nation: decency, generosity, and character. (Applause.) I thank you for a lifetime of service. I thank you for the positive contributions you make to our nation, and I'm proud to join you today.

First, I want to thank Tom Boch, the national commander, for his kind introduction and his strong leadership. (Applause.)

I always -- I always am pleased to welcome the commander to the Oval Office to discuss common issues, and you've done a fine job leading this organization, Tom.

I also want to thank your wife, Elaine, and I particularly want to pay respect to your son, Captain Bock, of the United States Army who's joined us today. (Cheers, applause.)

I appreciate being here with Carol Van Kirk, the national president of the American Legion Auxiliary, and I want to thank all the auxiliary members who are with us here today as well. (Cheers, applause.)

I'm proud that the governor of this great state, Jon Huntsman, and his wife, Mary Kaye, have joined us. Governor, thank you for your time.

I'm also proud to be joined by two United States senators who are strong supporters of the United States military, Senator Orrin Hatch and Senator Bob Bennett. (Cheers, applause.)

Members of the congressional delegation from the state of Utah have joined us -- Congressman Rob Bishop and Congressman Chris Cannon. Thank you both for coming. I'm proud you're here. (Applause.)

I thank the state senator, John Valentine, who's the president of the Utah State Senate. I appreciate Speaker Greg Curtis. I want to thank all the state and local officials who have joined us here today. Most particularly, I want to thank you all for giving me the chance to come and speak to you. I particularly want to thank all the Gold Star Families who've joined us today. May God bless you. May God bless you. (Cheers, applause.)

As veterans, all of you stepped forward when America needed you most. From North Africa to Normandy, Iwo Jima to Inchon, from Khe Sanh to Kuwait, your courage and service have made it possible for generations to live in liberty, and we owe you more than just thanks.

We owe you the support of the federal government. And so in my first four years as president, we increased funding for veterans more than the previous administration did in eight years. (Cheers, applause.) Since then, we've increased it even more. My budget for this year provides more than $80 billion for veterans. That's a 75 percent increase since I took office. It's the highest level of support for veterans in American history. (Cheers, applause.) For many, veterans health care is a top priority, and it's a top priority of my administration. When Congress passes my 2007 budget, we will have increased the VA health care budget by 69 percent since 2001. We've extended treatment to a million additional veterans, including more than 300,000 men and women returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. (Applause.) We're building new VA facilities in places where veterans are retiring, so that more veterans can get top-quality health care closer to their homes. I appreciate the legion's strong history of care and compassion for your fellow veterans. Earlier this week, I traveled to Mississippi and Louisiana to mark the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Veterans were hit hard by this storm, and American Legion posts all across the United States responded with vital relief. In our suffering, you showed the good heart of our nation, and you showed the world that America can always count in legionnaires. (Applause.)

I also appreciate the legion's long history of supporting wise legislation in the nation's capitol. Earlier this year, the Senate voted on the constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration. We came within a single vote of passing it. The administration looks forward to continuing to working with the American Legion to make sure we get this important protection in the Constitution of the United States of America. (Cheers, applause.)

Your organization supported another good piece of legislation called the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act. This bill ensures that families of fallen service members will not have to endure protests during military funerals. (Cheers, applause.)

My administration will also continue to work to locate the men and women in uniform whose fate is still undetermined, our prisoners of war and personnel missing in action. We will not forget these brave Americans. We must not rest until we've accounted for every soldier, sailor, airman, Coast Guardsman and Marine, and we will always honor their courage. (Applause.)

At this hour, a new generation of Americans in uniform is showing great courage in defending our freedom in the first war of the 21st century. I know that Legionnaires are following this war closely, especially those of you with family and friends who wear our uniform.

The images that come back from the front lines are striking and sometimes unsettling. When you see innocent civilians ripped apart by suicide bombs or families buried inside their homes, the world can seem engulfed in purposeless violence.

The truth is, there is violence, but those who cause it have a clear purpose. When terrorists murder at the World Trade Center, or car bombers strike in Baghdad, or hijackers plot to blow -- blow up planes over the Atlantic, or terrorist militias shoot rockets at Israeli towns, they are all pursuing the same objective: to turn back the advance of freedom and impose a dark vision of tyranny and terror across the world. The enemies of liberty come from different parts of the world, and they take inspiration from different sources. Some are radicalized followers of the Sunni tradition who swear allegiance to terrorist organizations like al Qaeda. Others are radicalized followers of the Shi'a tradition who join groups like Hezbollah and take guidance from state sponsors like Syria and Iran. Still others are homegrown terrorists, fanatics who live quietly in free societies they dream to destroy.

Despite their differences, these groups from -- form the outlines of a single movement, a worldwide network of radicals that use terror to kill those who stand in the way of their totalitarian ideology. And the unifying feature of this movement, the link that spans sectarian divisions and local grievances, is the rigid conviction that free societies are a threat to their twisted view of Islam. The war we fight today is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. (Applause.)

On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation, the right of all people to speak and worship and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism, the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. As veterans, you have seen this kind of enemy before. They're successors to fascists, to Nazis, to communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century, and history shows what the outcome will be. This war will be difficult, this war will be long, and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists of -- totalitarians, and a victory for the cause of freedom and liberty. (Applause.) We're now approaching the fifth anniversary of the day this war reached our shores. (Pauses.) As the horror of that morning grows more distant, there is the tendency to believe that the threat is receding and this war is coming to a close. That feeling is natural and comforting and wrong. As we recently saw, the enemy still wants to attack us. We're in a war we didn't ask for, but it's a more -- we must wage and a war we will win. (Applause.)

In the coming days, I'll deliver a series of speeches describing the nature of our enemy in the war on terror, the insights we've gained about their aims and ambitions, the successes and setbacks we've experienced, and our strategy to prevail in this long war.

Today I'll discuss a critical aspect of this war -- the struggle between freedom and terror in the Middle East, including the battle in Iraq, which is the central front in our fight against terrorism.

To understand the struggle unfolding in the Middle East, we need to look at the recent history of the region. For a half century, America's primary goal in the Middle East was stability. This was understandable at the time. We were fighting the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and it was important to support Middle Eastern governments that rejected Communism. Yet, over the decades, an undercurrent of danger was rising in the Middle East. Much of the region was mired in stagnation and despair. A generation of young people grew up with little hope to improve their lives, and many fell under the sway of radical extremism.

The terrorist movement multiplied in strength, and resentment that had simmered for years boiled over into violence across the world. Extremists in Iran seized American hostages. Hezbollah terrorists murdered American troops at the Marine Barracks in Beirut and Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Terrorists set off a truck bomb at the World Trade Center. Al Qaeda blew up two U.S. embassies in East Africa and bombed the USS Cole. Then came the nightmare of September the 11th, 2001, when 19 hijackers killed nearly 3,000 men, women and children. In the space of a single morning, it became clear that the calm we saw in the Middle East was only a mirage. We realized that years of pursuing stability to promote peace have left us with neither. Instead, the lack of freedom in the Middle East made the region an incubator for terrorist movements. The status quo in the Middle East before September the 11th was dangerous and unacceptable, so we're pursuing a new strategy.

First, we are using every element of national power to confront al Qaeda, those who take inspiration from them and other terrorists who use similar tactics. We have ended the days of treating terrorism simply as a law enforcement matter. We will stay on the offense. We will fight the terrorists overseas so we do not have to face them here at home. (Cheers, applause.)

Second, we have made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists, you're an enemy of the United States and you will be held to account. (Applause.)

And third, we've launched a bold, new agenda to defeat the ideology of the enemy by supporting the forces of freedom in the Middle East and beyond. The Freedom Agenda is based upon our deepest ideals and our vital interests.

Americans believe that every person of every religion on every continent has the right to determine his or her own destiny. We believe that freedom is a gift from an almighty God beyond any power on Earth to take away. (Cheers, applause.) And we also know by history and by logic that promoting democracy is the surest way to build security. Democracies don't attack each other or threaten the peace. Governments accountable to the voters focus on building roads and schools, not weapons of mass destruction. Young people who have a say in their future are less likely to search for meaning in extremism. Citizens who can join a peaceful political party are less likely to join a terrorist organization. Dissidents with the freedom to protest around the clock are less likely to blow themselves up during rush hour, and nations that commit to freedom for their people will not support terrorists; they will join us in defeating them. (Applause.)

So America's committed its influence in the world to advancing freedom, and democracy is a great alternative to repression and radicalism. We will take the side of democratic leaders and reformers across the Middle East. We will support the voices of tolerance and moderation in the Muslim world. We stand with the mothers and fathers in every culture who want to see their children grow up in a caring and peaceful world. And by supporting the cause of freedom in a vital region, we will make our children and our grandchildren more secure. (Applause.)

Over the past five years, we've begun to see the results of our actions, and we have seen how our enemies respond to the advance of liberty. In Afghanistan, we saw a vicious tyranny that harbored the terrorists who planned the September the 11th attacks. Within weeks, American forces were within Afghanistan. Along with Afghan allies, we captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. We closed down their training camps, and we helped the people of Afghanistan replace the Taliban with a democratic government that answers to them. (Applause.)

Our enemies saw the transformation in Afghanistan, and they responded by trying to roll back all the progress. Al Qaeda and the Taliban lost a coveted base in Afghanistan, and they know they will never reclaim it when democracy succeeds. And so they're trying to return to power by attacking Afghanistan's free institutions, and they will fail. (Applause.) Forces from 40 nations, including every member of NATO, are now serving alongside American troops to support the new Afghan government. The days of the Taliban are over. The future of Afghanistan belongs to the people of Afghanistan, and the future of Afghanistan belongs to freedom. (Applause.)

In Lebanon, we saw a sovereign nation occupied by the Syrian dictatorship. We also saw the courageous people of Lebanon take to the streets to demand their independence. So we worked to enforce a United Nations resolution that required Syria to end its occupation of the country. The Syrians withdrew their armed forces, and the Lebanese people elected a democratic government that began to reclaim their country. Our enemies saw the transformation in Lebanon and set out to destabilize the young democracy. Hezbollah launched an unprovoked attack on Israel that undermined the democrat government in Beirut. Yet, their brazen action caused the world to unite in support for Lebanon's democracy. Secretary Rice worked with the Security Council to pass Resolution 1701, which will strengthen Lebanese forces as they take control of southern Lebanon and stop Hezbollah from acting as a state within a state. I appreciate the troops pledged by France and Italy and other allies for this important international deployment. Together we're going to make it clear to the world that foreign forces and terrorists have no place in a free and democratic Lebanon. (Applause.)

This summer's crisis in Lebanon has made it clearer than ever that the world now faces a grave threat from the radical regime in Iran. The Iranian regime arms, funds, and advises Hezbollah, which has killed more Americans than any terrorist network except al Qaeda.

The Iranian regime interferes in Iraq by sponsoring terrorists and insurgents, empowering unlawful militias, and supplying components for improvised explosive devices. The Iranian regime denies basic human rights to millions of its people, and the Iranian regime is pursuing nuclear weapons in open defiance of its international obligations. We know the death and suffering that Iran's sponsorship of terrorists has brought, and we can imagine how much worse it would be if Iran were allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Many nations are working together to solve this problem. The United Nations passed a resolution demanding that Iran suspend its nuclear enrichment activities. Today is the deadline for Iran's leaders to reply to the reasonable proposal the international community has made.

If Iran's leaders accept this offer and abandon their nuclear weapons ambitions, they can set their country on a better course. Yet so far, the Iranian regime has responded with further defiance and delay. It is time for Iran to make a choice. We've made our choice. We will continue to work closely with our allies to find a diplomatic solution, but there must be consequences for Iran's defiance, and we must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. (Applause.) In Iraq, we saw a dictator who harbored terrorists, fired at military planes, paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, invaded a neighbor, and pursued and used weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions demanding that Saddam Hussein fully and openly abandon his weapons of mass destruction. We gave him a last chance to comply, and when he refused, we enforced the just demands of the world. And now, Saddam Hussein is in prison and on trial. Soon he will have the justice he denied to -- to -- to so many for so long. (Applause.) And with this tyrant gone from power, the United States, Iraq, the Middle East and the world are better off. (Applause.)

In three years since Saddam's fall, the Iraqi people have reclaimed the sovereignty of their country. They cast their ballots in free elections. They drafted and approved a democratic constitution and elected a constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East.

Over the same period, Iraq has seen a rise of terrorist and insurgent movements that use brutal and indiscriminate violence to frustrate the desire of the Iraqi people for freedom and peace. Al Qaeda terrorists, former elements of Saddam's regime, illegal militias and unlawful armed groups are all working to undermine Iraq's new democracy. These groups have different long-term ambitions but the same immediate goals. They want to drive America and our coalition out of Iraq and the Middle East so they can stop the advance of freedom and impose their dark vision on the people of the Middle East. (Applause.)

Our enemies in Iraq have employed ruthless tactics to achieve those goals. They've targeted American and coalition troops with ambushes and roadside bombs. They've taken hostage and beheaded civilians on camera. They've blown up Iraqi army posts and assassinated government leaders. We've adapted to the tactics, and thanks to the skill and professionalism of Iraqi and American forces, many of these enemies have met their end. (Applause.)

At every stop along the way, our enemies have failed to break the courage of the Iraqi people. They have failed to stop the rise of Iraqi democracy, and they will fail in breaking the will of the American people. (Cheers, applause.) And now these enemies have launched a new effort. They have embarked on a bloody campaign of sectarian violence which they hope will plunge Iraq into a civil war. The outbreak of sectarian violence was encouraged by the terrorist Zarqawi, al Qaeda's man in Iraq, who called for an all-out war on Iraqi Shi'a. The Shi'a community resisted the impulse to seek revenge for a while. But after this February bombing of the Shi'a Golden Dome Mosque in Samarra, extremist groups mobilized and sectarian death squads formed on the streets of Baghdad and other areas. Our ambassador reports that thousands of Iraqis were murdered in Baghdad last month, and large numbers of them were victims of sectarian violence. This cruelty and carnage has led some to question whether Iraq has descended into civil war. Our commanders and our diplomats on the ground in Iraq believe that it's not the case. They report that only a small number of Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, while the overwhelming majority want peace and a normal life and a unified country. Iraqi leaders from all backgrounds remember the elections that brought them to power, in which 12 million Iraqis defied the car bombers and killers to reclaim, "We want to be free." (Applause.)

Iraq's -- Iraq's government is working tirelessly to hold the nation together and to heal Iraq's divisions, not to exploit them. The Iraqi people have come a long way. They are not going to let their country fall apart or relapse into tyranny. As Prime Minister Maliki told the United States Congress: Iraqis have tasted freedom, and we will defend it absolutely. (Applause.) America has a clear strategy to help the Iraqi people protect their new freedom and build a democracy that can govern itself and sustain itself and defend itself. On the political side, we're working closely with Prime Minister Maliki to strengthen Iraq's unity government and develop -- and to deliver better services to the Iraqi people. It's a crucial moment for the new Iraqi government. Its leaders understand the challenge. They believe that now is the time to hammer out compromises on Iraq's most contentious issues. I've been clear with each Iraqi leader I meet: America is a patient nation, and Iraq can count on our partnership, as long as the new government continues to make the hard decisions necessary to advance a unified democratic and peaceful Iraq. Prime Minister Maliki has shown courage in laying out an agenda to do just that, and he can count on an ally, the United States of America, to help him promote this agenda. (Applause.) And on the security side, we're refining our tactics to meet the threats on the ground.

I've given our commanders in Iraq all the flexibility they need to make adjustments necessary to stay on the offense and defeat the enemies of freedom. We've deployed Special Operations Forces to kill or capture terrorists operating in Iraq. Zarqawi found out what they can do. We continue to train Iraqi and police forces to defend their own nation. We've handed over security responsibility for a southern province to Iraqi forces. Five of Iraq's 10 army divisions are now taking the lead in their areas of operation. The Iraqi security forces are determined. They're becoming more capable, and together, we will defeat the enemies of a free Iraq. (Applause.) Recently, we also launched a major new campaign to end the security crisis in Baghdad. Side by side Iraqi and American forces are conducting operations in the city's most violent areas to disrupt al Qaeda, to capture enemy fighters, crackdown on IED makers, and break up the death squads. These forces are helping Iraq's national police force undergo retraining to better enforce law in Baghdad, and these forces are supporting the Iraqi government as it provides reconstruction assistance. The Baghdad security plan is still in its early stages. We cannot expect immediate success; yet the initial results are encouraging. According to one military report, a Sunni man in a diverse Baghdad neighborhood said this about the Shi'a soldiers on patrol.

"Their image has changed. Now you feel they're there to protect you." Over the coming weeks and months, the operation will expand throughout Baghdad, until Iraq's democratic government is in full control of its capital. The work is difficult and dangerous, but the Iraqi government and their forces are determined to reclaim their country, and the United States is determined to help them succeed. (Applause.) Here at home we have a choice to make about Iraq. Some politicians look at our efforts in Iraq and see a diversion from the war on terror. That would come as news to Osama bin Laden, who proclaimed that the third world war is raging in Iraq; come as news to number-two man of al Qaeda, Zawahiri, who has called the struggle in Iraq, quote, "the place for the greatest battle." It would come as news to the terrorists from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Yemen and other countries who have come to Iraq to fight the rise of democracy. It's hard to believe that these terrorists have made long journeys across dangerous borders to endure heavy fighting or blow themselves up in the streets of Baghdad for a so-called diversion.

Some Americans didn't support my decision to remove Saddam Hussein. Many are frustrated with the level of violence. But we should all agree that the battle for Iraq is now central to the ideological struggle of the 21st century. We will not allow the terrorists to dictate the future of this century, so we will defeat them in Iraq. (Applause.) Still, there are some in our country who insist that the best option in Iraq is to pull out, regardless of the situation on the ground. Many of these folks are sincere and they're patriotic. But they could be -- they could not be more wrong. If America were to pull out before Iraq can defend itself, the consequences would be absolutely predictable and absolutely disastrous. We would be handing Iraq over to our worst enemies: Saddam's former henchmen, armed groups with ties to Iran and al Qaeda terrorists from all over the world who would suddenly have a base of operations far more valuable than Afghanistan under the Taliban. They would have a new sanctuary to recruit and train terrorists at the heart of the Middle East, with huge oil riches to fund their ambitions. And we know exactly where those ambitions lead. If we give up the fight in the streets in Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities. We can decide to stop fighting the terrorists in Iraq, in other parts of the world, but they will not decide to stop fighting us.

General John Abizaid, our top commander in the Middle East region, recently put it this way: If we leave, they will follow us. And he is right. The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq. So the United States of America will not leave until victory is achieved. (Applause.) Victory in Iraq will be difficult and it will require more sacrifice. The fighting there can be as fierce as it was at Omaha Beach or Guadalcanal. And victory is as important as it was in those earlier battles. Victory in Iraq will result in a democracy that is a friend of America and an ally in the war on terror. Victory in Iraq will be a crushing defeat to our enemies who have staked so much on the battle there. Victory in Iraq will honor the sacrifice of the brave Americans who have given their lives. And victory in Iraq would be a powerful triumph in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. From Damascus to Tehran, people will look to a democratic Iraq as inspiration that freedom can succeed in the Middle East, and as evidence that the side of freedom is the winning side. This is a pivotal moment for the Middle East. The world is watching, and in Iraq and beyond, the forces of freedom will prevail. (Applause.)

For all the debate, American policy in the Middle East comes down to a straightforward choice. We can allow the Middle East to continue on its course, on the course it was headed before September the 11th, and a generation from now, our children will face a region dominated by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. Or we can stop that from happening by rallying the world to confront the ideology of hate and give the people of the Middle East a future of hope. And that is the choice America has made. (Applause.)

We see a day when people across the Middle East have governments that honor their dignity, unleash their creativity and count their votes. We see a day when leaders across the Middle East reject terror and protect freedom. We see a day when the nations of the Middle East are allies in the cause of peace. The pass of that day will be uphill and uneven, but we can be confident of the outcome because we know that the direction of history leads toward freedom.

In the early years of our republic, Thomas Jefferson said that we cannot expect to move from despotism to liberty in a featherbed. That's been true in every time and place. No one understands that you, our veterans, understand that. With the distance of history, it can be easy to look back at the wars of the 20th century and see a straight path to victory. You know better than that. You waged the hard battles, you suffered the wounds, you lost friends and brothers. You were there for dark times and the moments of uncertainty, and you know that freedom is always worth the sacrifice.

You also know what it takes to win. For all that is new about this war, one thing has not changed. Victory still depends on the courage and the patience and the resolve of the American people. Above all, it depends on patriots who are willing to fight for freedom. (Applause.)

Our nation is blessed to have these men -- men and women in abundance. Our military forces make this nation strong, they make this nation safe, and they make this nation proud. (Applause.)

We thank them and their families for their sacrifice. We will remember all those who have given their lives in this struggle, and I vow that we will give our men and women in uniform all the resources they need to accomplish their missions. (Applause.)

One brave American we remember is Marine Corporal Adam Galvez from here in Salt Lake City. Yesterday Adam's mom and dad laid their son to rest. We're honored by their presence with us today. (Applause.)

About a month ago, Adam was wounded by a suicide bomb in Iraq's Anbar province. When he regained consciousness, he found he was buried alive, so he dug himself out of the rubble, and then he ran through gunfire to get a shovel to dig out his fellow Marines.

As soon as he recovered from his injuries, Adam volunteered to go back to the frontlines, and 11 days ago he was killed when a roadside bomb hit his convoy.

Here's what Adam's mom and dad said about the cause for which their son gave his life, "Though many are debating the justification of this war, Adam believed in this country -- Adam's belief in this country did not waver, even to the point of the ultimate sacrifice. It's our hope and our prayer that people share the same conviction and dedication to our troops and fellow Americans." (Applause.) Our nation will always remember the selflessness and sacrifice of Americans like Adam Galvez. We will honor their lives by completing the good and noble work they have started. (Applause.) And we can be confident that one day, veterans of the war on terror will gather in American Legion Halls across the country and say the same things you say: We made our nation safer, we made a region more peaceful, and we left behind a better world for our children and our grandchildren. (Applause.)

Thanks for having me. May God bless our veterans, may God bless our troops, and may God continue to bless the United States of America. (Cheers, applause.)

END

President Bush's Speech, NYT, 31.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/washington/31text-bush.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Bush campaigns against Iraq war criticism

Thu Aug 31, 2006 2:19 AM ET
Reuters
By Caren Bohan

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (Reuters) - For the third time in less than a year and two months before crucial U.S. elections, President George W. Bush is launching a new campaign to counter opposition to the Iraq war with a series of speeches he insists are not political.

The first of the speeches is planned for Thursday at the American Legion annual convention in Salt Lake City, and Bush will continue the theme of the Iraq war and national security through mid-September, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Bush landed in Salt Lake City on Wednesday evening to a campaign-style rally with about two-thousand people waving signs that read "Utah Loves President Bush" and yelling "We love you."

Bush spoke from a platform set up before the crowd, again emphasizing that the United States must not abandon Iraq. "We will stay the course, we will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed," he said.

After a surge in violence in the past few months, Bush will acknowledge "that these are unsettling times," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. But the president will discuss the Iraq war in the broader context of the war on terror, she said.

Democrats have pressed for a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. But Bush argues that a premature exit would embolden al Qaeda and leave Americans more vulnerable to another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Iraq has emerged as a top issue in the run-up to November's congressional elections. Democrats hope to win control of at least one chamber of Congress and many believe disillusionment with the Iraq war could boost their chances.

Democrats and Republicans accuse each other of politicizing the war debate.

Bush, first visiting Little Rock, Arkansas, to raise money for Republican gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson, rejected any tie between politics and the blitz of speeches on Iraq.

SPEECHES 'NOT POLITICAL'

"My series of speeches, they are not political speeches, they are speeches about the future of this country and they are speeches to make it clear that if we retreat before the job is done, this nation will become in even more jeopardy," he said.

"These are important times and I would seriously hope people wouldn't politicize these issues that I am going to talk about," Bush added.

Bush later hit some of his themes about the war at a fundraiser for a Republican Senate candidate in Nashville, Tennessee.

"The stakes in Iraq are high," Bush said, warning that a premature withdrawal would lead militants to "follow us here."

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a similar case on Tuesday but took it a step further by likening war critics to those who argued for appeasing the Nazis during World War Two. He spoke to the same American Legion veterans Bush is due to visit on Thursday.

The comparison stirred outrage among Democrats.

"We Democrats want to fight a very strong war on terror," said Charles Schumer, a New York senator. "No one has talked about not doing everything we can to make sure we win this war on terror."

Bush's popularity ratings are hovering in the high 30 percent range, only slightly better than record lows earlier this year, making him a liability for many in his party. Yet voters give him his highest marks for his handling of the war on terrorism.

Perino said Bush's American Legion speech will explain the "roots of the ideological struggle in the lack of freedom in the Middle East" and emphasize Bush's agenda of trying to spur democratic change there.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria)

Bush campaigns against Iraq war criticism, R, 31.8.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-08-31T061854Z_01_N30228334_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-2

Rove Has Unparalleled Influence With Bush

August 29, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:28 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Karl Rove was not ''frog-marched'' out of the White House in handcuffs as his detractors had hoped, but the past year was certainly a low point for President Bush's close friend and chief political strategist.

A criminal investigation put Rove under scrutiny for months, then he was forced to surrender a key policy role in a move that raised questions about his authority in the White House.

While Rove fought the allegations and kept a low public profile, he never lost his unparalleled influence on the president, say those close to him.

''The history of a lot of folks in these jobs is that they are hired guns,'' Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said. ''With Karl, you have someone who has been central to what the president has been doing for decades.''

Mehlman and others in the White House say Rove gave up his responsibilities as chief policy coordinator in April, but remains heavily involved in all aspects of domestic and international policy.

The coordinator role had turned Rove into an internal White House diplomat, trying to coordinate different views into a coherent position while maintaining neutrality. Some felt it stretched the political strategist too thin.

The slimmed-down portfolio leaves Rove freer to focus on politics, look at the big picture and provide a gut-check in a White House that has struggled with missteps that may leave Republicans vulnerable in the midterm congressional elections.

Rove fell under a legal cloud after a grand jury, starting late in 2003, began investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity to reporters. He learned in June that he would not be indicted.

With that threat behind him, Rove is back to his old playful self -- sporting Elvis sideburns on a recent trip to Memphis with the president and traveling around the country for lucrative storytelling to GOP donors.

The Republican base never flinched at suggestions that Rove tried to smear administration critic Joe Wilson by revealing his wife's role as a CIA operative.

Publicity surrounding the case may have increased Rove's stature among Republicans and contributed to an almost mystical view of the longtime Bush strategist among the party faithful because he came out on top.

At a recent presidential fundraiser near Bush's Texas ranch, a line that formed for photos with Rove was nearly as long as the line waiting to see the president.

Rove is an impressive fundraiser himself, bringing in $10.4 million in 75 events this cycle, more than any other Republican official besides the president, first lady and vice president.

''He came out clean,'' said Robert Pruger, one of the donors who recently paid $1,000 to hear Rove speak in Toledo. ''When your opponent hits you and it doesn't stick, you end up stronger for it.''

The fundraiser aided the campaign of Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell. Financial consultant Cleves Delp was told that if he helped stage the fundraiser, he could get any leading conservative he liked to attend.

Rove wasn't the first choice, but Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas couldn't raise money for the GOP, Delp learned.

Instead he got Rove, who mingled at Delp's home before the main event. Donors paid at least $10,000 each for the privilege of meeting Rove privately.

Delp was thrilled with the insider stories told by Rove.

If Rove experienced any pain from having his own reputation questioned, it hasn't stopped him from tearing down political opponents with attacks on their credibility.

Once again he's using the tactic that helped Bush win re-election in 2004 -- suggesting that Democrats cannot adequately protect the country from terrorists.

''The problem for these Democrats is that their policies would have consequences and their policies would make us more, not less, vulnerable,'' Rove said from a podium beneath the beamed, vaulted ceilings and brass chandeliers of the Inverness Country Club in Toledo. ''And in war, weakness emboldens your enemies and it's an invitation for disaster.''

He even targets those who are decorated military veterans like Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha.

Rove recently said those Democrats ''may be with you at the first shots, but they are not going to be there for the last tough battles.''

He criticizes the media too. A favorite target is The New York Times and its role in revealing the administration's secret tracking of terrorist financing. He recently said journalists often criticize political professionals because they want to draw attention away from the ''corrosive role their coverage has played focusing attention on process and not substance.''

That might offer a clue to why Rove declined to be interviewed for this article and quickly left the Toledo fundraiser -- a rare public forum that attracted a media pack that chased him out to his car.

Asked about his recent weight loss, Rove, without mentioning his liquid-based diet, smiled and told reporters he'd lost 22 pounds through ''clean living.''

The mischievous Rove stuck his head out of the car before it sped off to add gleefully: ''And avoiding you guys.''

------

On the Net:

http://www.whitehouse.gov

Rove Has Unparalleled Influence With Bush, NYT, 29.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Roves-Resurrection.html

Bush Visits Gulf Coast, Stressing Progress

August 29, 2006
The New York Times
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 28 — On the eve of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s strike here, President Bush returned to the devastated region on Monday promising to continue federal assistance and, with his presidency still under the shadow of the slow response to the storm, eagerly pointed out signs of progress in reconstructing the Gulf Coast.

But as another storm rolled toward Florida, with thousands of victims from Hurricane Katrina still uprooted, Mr. Bush admitted there were “a lot of problems left.”

Winding his way through tattered towns in Mississippi on his way here, Mr. Bush spent the day demonstrating empathy and optimism, touring rebuilt areas and meeting with local officials and residents in his 13th trip to the area since the storm.

The journey was part of a continuing effort to recast his image from last year, when Mr. Bush stayed on the West Coast before cutting short his vacation to deal with one of the most significant crises of his administration. His popularity was severely damaged after the storm, which killed about 1,500 people and flooded most of New Orleans, and it has never fully recovered.

In sweltering midday heat, his shirt soaked with sweat, Mr. Bush told a group of Biloxi, Miss., residents that he knew the rebuilding was so slow that to some it felt as if nothing was happening.

Still, Mr. Bush said, “For a fellow who was here and now a year later comes back, things are changing.”

“I feel the quiet sense of determination that’s going to shape the future of Mississippi,” he said.

In an event with echoes of his prime-time speech in Jackson Square here last September, Mr. Bush spoke in a working-class neighborhood in Biloxi against a backdrop of neatly reconstructed homes. But just a few feet away, outside the scene captured by the camera, stood gutted houses with wires dangling from ceilings. A tattered piece of crime-scene tape hung from a tree in the field where Mr. Bush spoke. A toilet sat on its side in the grass.

After a dinner Monday night with New Orleans officials, including Mayor C. Ray Nagin, Mr. Bush is scheduled to tour city neighborhoods on Tuesday and deliver another speech. He is also planning to return to Jackson Square for a memorial service at St. Louis Cathedral.

As the president spoke in Biloxi, he was flanked by Mississippi’s two senators, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran and Gov. Haley Barbour, all three of them Republicans, and Don Powell, the Gulf Coast reconstruction coordinator. Watching from the sidelines was Mr. Bush’s chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, whose presence was a reminder of the reshuffling at the White House after the former chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., failed to manage the storm crisis.

Nearby, along the ocean, ravaged antebellum homes and churches dotted the waterfront. The beach from Gulfport, Miss., to Biloxi, was deserted. Debris hung from trees and motels stood shuttered. Blue tarpaulins still patched the roofs of most dwellings. Written in green spray paint on a fence around a home in Biloxi was “You loot, I shoot.”

In Washington and around the country Monday, Hurricane Katrina continued to occupy a prominent place in the political arena. Both the White House and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill issued “fact sheets” with competing assertions about the rate of progress and the nation’s ability to cope with another disaster.

“One year later, neither the tragedy Katrina caused — the flooding of New Orleans and the devastation of the Gulf Coast — nor the tragedy that it exposed — the extent of the federal government’s failure to provide a life of security and dignity to all of our citizens — have been adequately addressed,” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said in a statement.

In late August of 2005, as the hurricane approached and scientists warned of a potential disaster, Mr. Bush was on vacation at his ranch outside Crawford, Tex., where the most pressing problem was an antiwar protest.

When the storm actually hit and his advisers began to realize the scope of the catastrophe, Mr. Bush was in Southern California on a campaign-style travel swing. Images of a remote president playing guitar on a military base, then later posing for a picture as he peered out the window of Air Force One as it flew over the devastation helped fuel the perception that Mr. Bush failed to respond adequately to the storm.

This year, Mr. Bush is also returning to Crawford — his final stop on Tuesday — before heading out to campaign in Arkansas, Tennessee and Utah this week. The overnight stay comes after an abbreviated vacation, in Crawford earlier this month and at his parents’ home in Kennebunkport, Me., last weekend, and two days of commemorating the hurricane anniversary.

Speaking to reporters Monday after visiting United States Marine Inc., a company in Gulfport that builds military boats, Mr. Bush predicted that the rebuilding effort would take “years, not months.”

“There will be a momentum, momentum will be gathered,” the president said. “Houses will begat jobs, jobs will begat houses.”

But, he continued: “It’s hard to describe the devastation down here. It was massive in its destruction, and it spared nobody. United States Senator Trent Lott had a fantastic house overlooking the bay. I know because I sat in it with he and his wife. And now it’s completely obliterated. There’s nothing.”

Bush Visits Gulf Coast, Stressing Progress, NYT, 29.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/us/nationalspecial/29bush.html?hp&ex=1156910400&en=b47f879f3d3b3864&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Year After Katrina, Bush Still Fights for 9/11 Image

August 28, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 — When the nation records the legacy of George W. Bush, 43rd president and self-described compassionate conservative, two competing images will help tell the tale.

The first is of Mr. Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, bullhorn in hand, feet planted firmly in the rubble of the twin towers. The second is of him aboard Air Force One, on his way from Crawford, Tex., to Washington, peering out the window at the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina thousands of feet below.

If the bungled federal response to Hurricane Katrina called into question the president’s competence, that Air Force One snapshot, coupled with wrenching scenes on the ground of victims who were largely poor and black, called into question something equally important to Mr. Bush: his compassion.

A year later, he has yet to recover on either front.

Mr. Bush has prodded Congress to approve tens of billions of dollars for rebuilding and victim assistance, delivered a much-publicized fence-mending speech to the N.A.A.C.P. and made repeated trips to the Gulf Coast, where he plans to observe the anniversary of the storm Monday and Tuesday. Yet his public persona remains that of wartime president — the man standing in the Manhattan rubble — flying by as desperate and vulnerable Americans suffered.

His approval ratings have never rebounded from their post-hurricane plummet. A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted this month found that 51 percent of those surveyed disapproved of the way Mr. Bush had responded to the needs of hurricane victims, a figure statistically no different from last September, when 48 percent disapproved.

“This is a real black mark on his administration, and it’s going to stay with him for a long time,” said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. “It will be in every textbook.”

The White House says it has allocated $110 billion toward rebuilding and victim assistance; of that, $44 billion has been spent. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided more than $6 billion directly to nearly 950,000 victims for temporary housing, the most money ever provided by the agency for a single natural disaster.

But Mr. Bush is not getting much credit. The poll found Americans critical about the pace of recovery and lacking full confidence in the government. Thirty-nine percent described themselves as dissatisfied with progress in the region, and an additional 11 percent said they were angry. Fifty-six percent had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in the government’s ability to respond to another natural disaster; 44 percent had little or no confidence at all.

The storm is generating a powerful undercurrent in this year’s midterm elections as well, as Democrats invoke it as a catchphrase for what they regard as mismanagement on a number of issues, including the war in Iraq and the economy. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who runs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said his candidates mentioned the storm at every turn.

“I might argue that this was the worst thing that’s happened to George Bush in the whole six years of his presidency,” Mr. Schumer said. “It was a perception-altering event. People had questioned his ideology. People had even questioned his intelligence. But before this, average people rarely questioned his competence or his caring.”

One year later, Democrats are not the only ones raising questions. In follow-up interviews to the Times/CBS News poll, Republicans and independents also expressed lingering doubts about Mr. Bush, using language suggesting that their memories of the storm and his handling of it remained fresh and deep.

“Bush did nothing for the people,” said one Republican, Joseph Ippolito, 75, a retired highway superintendent from Bayville, N.J. “Bush didn’t have the proper people in office to take care of Katrina. The whole administration is wacky — and I voted twice for him.”

White House officials and leading Republicans, while defending the president’s record, are not surprised by the anger.

Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, said the White House was well aware that New Orleans residents “are skeptical about our commitment,” and that many Americans blamed Mr. Bush for their fellow citizens’ suffering. But Mr. Bartlett said the president would ultimately be judged on how the Gulf Coast was rebuilt and how the government handled the next crisis — a theme echoed by Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, the chairwoman of the Senate committee charged with overseeing the recovery.

“If we have another devastating hurricane and the response is markedly more efficient, more compassionate,” Ms. Collins said, “then I think people will say, ‘Well, they learned.’ ”

But the senator said the damage to the president’s image would be difficult to undo.

“Unfortunately, it may be hard to erase the regrettable photo of him on Air Force One looking down at the destruction and devastation below,” she said. “That’s a searing and very unfortunate image that doesn’t reflect the president’s compassion.”

When Mr. Bush stood last September in Jackson Square, in the darkened city of New Orleans, and declared that Americans had “a duty to confront this poverty with bold action,” religious and civil rights leaders saw it as a hopeful turning point. Suddenly, a president who had defined himself as the lead prosecutor in the war on terror was turning his attention to jobs, housing and education for the poor, in language that evoked memories of the 1960’s.

Today, those same leaders are discouraged and critical.

“Here was an opportunity for a new conversation on race and class and poverty, and they blew it,” said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III, a Bush supporter who runs a coalition that represents mainly black churches. “It’s not even just President Bush. Here was an opportunity for Republicans and conservatives in general to make a moral and intellectual case for a positive policy agenda for the black poor, and they did not advance it.”

Yet the mayor of New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, who had been critical of the president, publicly praised him in his re-election victory speech in May, thanking Mr. Bush for “delivering for the citizens of New Orleans.”

Others who have worked with the president on the recovery, including prominent Democrats like Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Donna Brazile, a political strategist who spent 2000 trying to defeat Mr. Bush as campaign manager for Vice President Al Gore, say they do not doubt his sincerity or commitment.

Ms. Brazile, a New Orleans native who serves on a state recovery task force, describes the president as “very much engaged” and praises him for prodding Congress to spend more money on levee rebuilding.

“I said to him, ‘You’ll be a hero if you commit to rebuilding those levees,’ ” she said, recounting their first meeting last December. “I have to give him credit. Two weeks later, we got the additional money.”

But Ms. Landrieu calls the administration “slow and reluctant.” She sees Mr. Bush as being distracted by the war in Iraq and says he has fallen short on the one task he cannot delegate: using the power of the presidency to grab the nation’s attention.

“I understand that there have been many distractions and many important priorities for the nation — the war in Iraq, the unrest in the Mideast — but the president has not maintained the bully pulpit on Katrina,” she said, adding, “He does it so intermittently, I wonder if we are on his mind.”

Some members of the public wonder as well.

“I find that the concentration of the president is on the Middle East crisis and not on what’s at home,” said Carlton DeCosta, a 33-year-old Navy veteran from Patchogue, N.Y., who said he considered himself an independent, in a follow-up interview to the Times/CBS News poll. “When the president addresses the country it has nothing to do with Katrina, nothing to do with the rebuilding.”

But Mary Lou Ackley, a 69-year-old homemaker from Elmira, N.Y., who said she voted Republican, said state and local agencies bore responsibility for the pace of rebuilding. “I don’t think the president sits there and does the pencil work,” Ms. Ackley said, adding, “He’s got a lot more to do than just direct Louisiana and their hurricanes.”

As the midterm elections approach, analysts say dissatisfaction with the administration’s handling of the hurricane could prompt the Republican faithful to stay home.

Professor Thurber, the American University scholar, says the competence issue will be central to history’s assessment of the president. Mr. Bartlett, the White House counselor, predicts historians will soften their criticism “if people see a better and more vibrant Gulf Coast emerge from this tragedy.”

With the rebuilding expected to continue long after Mr. Bush leaves office, Senator Landrieu says he still has a chance.

“I think there’s an opportunity for him to make this a real legacy of his presidency,” she said. “There’s still time to have people say he did a good job and he rose to the occasion. He’s writing the story himself.”

Megan Thee and Marina Stefan contributed reporting from New York for this article.

Year After Katrina, Bush Still Fights for 9/11 Image, NYT, 28.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/us/nationalspecial/28bush.html?hp&ex=1156824000&en=1cdb3fde830d64e8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush says British terror threat may not be over

Sat Aug 12, 2006 6:05 PM ET
Reuters
By Steve Holland

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush cautioned on Saturday the threat from a plot to detonate liquid explosives on commercial flights may not have passed and denied Democratic charges he was trying to use the crisis for political gains in an election year.

"We believe that this week's arrests have significantly disrupted the threat," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Yet we cannot be sure that the threat has been eliminated."

British authorities arrested two dozen suspects on Thursday for allegedly plotting to use liquid explosives to blow up airliners flying from Britain to the United States.

The arrests prompted the United States to raise its terror alert to the highest level ever and prompted airports to ban passengers from taking liquids, gels and creams on planes.

Bush, who returns to Washington on Sunday after a 10-day working vacation at his ranch, urged air travelers to be patient with the stricter security measures.

"The inconveniences you will face are for your protection and they will give us time to adjust our screening procedures to meet the current threat," he said.

Democrats on Friday accused Vice President Dick Cheney of trying to use this week's arrests in Britain to Republican advantage in November congressional elections, which will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Congress.

'AL QAEDA TYPES'

Cheney said on Wednesday the Democrats' defeat of Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman in the state's primary on Tuesday because of his support of the Iraq war could embolden "al Qaeda types."

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement on Friday: "Once again, GOP (Republican) leaders are using terrorism and our national security as a political wedge issue. It is disgusting -- but not surprising."

Bush said the suspected plot in Britain "reminds us of a hard fact: The terrorists have to succeed only once to achieve their goal of mass murder, while we have to succeed every time to stop them."

"Unfortunately, some have suggested recently that the terrorist threat is being used for partisan political advantage. We can have legitimate disagreements about the best way to fight the terrorists, yet there should be no disagreement about the dangers we face," he said.

Democrats in their weekly radio address charged Bush has shortchanged domestic security needs and the war on terror, and they blamed him for bungling the Iraq war.

Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas said the administration's "poor management" in Iraq "has created a rallying cry for international terrorists" and "diverted our focus, our military and more than $300 billion from the war on terrorism."

Pryor said U.S. ports, borders and chemical plants remain unsecured, emergency personnel lack critical resources and the military, including the National Guard, was stretched.

"It's time for Washington to be tough and smart about the threats we face," he said. "Americans deserve real security, not just leaders who talk tough but fail to deliver."

(Additional reporting by Vicki Allen)

Bush says British terror threat may not be over, R, 12.8.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-08-12T220516Z_01_N1197395_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-BUSH.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-3

Bush condemns attempt to blow up Iraqi Islam site

Fri Aug 11, 2006 2:18 PM ET
Reuters

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President George W. Bush condemned on Friday a suicide bomber's attempt to blow up one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest shrines, which he called a symbol of peace throughout the world.

The suicide bomber killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 120 Thursday near the Imam Ali shrine in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf.

"On behalf of the American people, I join Iraqi leaders of all communities who have condemned this barbarous action in the strongest possible terms. To the Iraqi people, I pledge the commitment of the United States to helping your new government bring peace and security to all areas of your country," Bush said.

The United States is attempting to keep Iraq from sliding into a civil war in which sectarian violence could kill thousands of Iraqis.

Newsweek reported this week that if Iraq does collapse into a full-scale civil war, Bush would withdraw U.S. troops to get them out of the cross-fire and would need no prompting from the U.S. Congress to do so.

U.S. involvement in Iraq is expected to be a key issue in November congressional elections.

"The terrorists in Iraq have again proven that they are enemies of all humanity. Yesterday, they targeted innocent civilians in Najaf near a holy Muslim shrine -- and a symbol of peace throughout the world," Bush said.

He hailed the police officers who gave their lives stopping the bomber outside of the shrine.

"We also mourn the loss of every innocent life in this atrocity and other atrocities perpetrated in Iraq in recent months," Bush said.

Bush condemns attempt to blow up Iraqi Islam site, R, 11.8.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-08-11T181746Z_01_N11298502_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-BUSH.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C2-TopNews-newsOne-7

The President

Bush, on a Quick Trip From His Texas Ranch, Says Americans Are Safer Than Before Sept. 11

August 11, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

CRAWFORD, Tex., Aug 10 — President Bush tried to assure Americans on Thursday that antiterrorism measures taken since the Sept. 11 attacks had made them safer while acknowledging that danger remained — part of a balancing act in which his aides portrayed him as deeply involved in dealing with the foiled airline plot even as he continued his vacation here.

As Americans stood in long lines at airports, Mr. Bush went ahead with his planned trip to Wisconsin to raise money for a Republican Congressional candidate and to speak about the economy during a stop at a metal factory. He made brief remarks about the arrests in Britain on the tarmac of the airport in Green Bay, saying the plot was “a stark reminder” of the threat from “Islamic fascists.”

“The country is safer than it was prior to 9/11,” he said in Green Bay. “We’ve taken a lot of measures to protect the American people. But obviously, we’re still not completely safe, because there are people that still plot and people who want to harm us for what we believe in.”

He later flew back to his ranch here, and aides said there were no plans for him to cut short his stay.

Democrats seized on Mr. Bush’s decision not to return to Washington as evidence that the president was disconnected.

Several senior Republican strategists were also uneasy with the possibility that images of President Bush’s activities in the past week, including bicycle rides in the 100-degree Texas heat, could be used to accuse him of being too casual about the potential terrorist threat.

White House officials said Mr. Bush was kept closely apprised of the investigation, through classified briefings conducted in a secure trailer on the ranch. Mr. Bush was at the ranch on Wednesday afternoon when his homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, called to tell him the arrests were imminent; the two spoke several times throughout the evening, a senior administration official said, and by late Wednesday night, with the bulk of the arrests having been made, the president signed off on the plan to raise the threat level.

But now that Americans have learned of the plot, some Republicans, when promised anonymity so they could speak freely about their criticisms, said Mr. Bush had to be careful not to appear out of touch, as his critics and even some of his allies said he did last summer when Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.

At a time when Congressional Republicans are facing tough re-election battles at home, they lamented that the president was not doing more to seize the mantle of national security.

“A policy of casual nonchalance is not a winning strategy,” said one Republican close to the White House, who suggested that the president should, at the least, deliver a primetime television address from the Crawford ranch.

Instead, Mr. Bush stuck to his schedule; after Thursday’s metal plant tour, he attended a fund-raiser for John Gard, a candidate for an eastern Wisconsin Congressional seat; the event raised $500,000. On Friday, he will travel down the road from his ranch, Prairie Chapel, to the Broken Spoke, a neighboring ranch, for another fund-raiser.

“The government functions even when the president is residing in Texas,” said Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president. “The president is never off the job; he has been working around the clock, as the American people would expect.”

One high-level administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said White House aides were concerned that the president would be open to accusations he was politicizing the crisis if he responded dramatically. This official said a decision had been made in part for the president to keep a low profile and allow the event to speak for itself.

During his vacation in Crawford, which began last Thursday, the president’s public comments have been focused largely on the Middle East, particularly over the weekend and Monday, when he was joined at the ranch by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser.

But over the past 7 to 10 days, according to a senior administration official who spoke anonymously about how Mr. Bush handled the plot inquiry behind the scenes, it became clear that the British investigation had “a significant U.S. element to it.” By Friday, the investigation had become “a significant focus” of the president’s morning intelligence briefings, the official said.

While Ms. Rice and Mr. Hadley were at the Crawford Middle School on Sunday, taping appearances on the morning talk shows about the crisis in Lebanon and Israel, Mr. Bush spent 47 minutes on the telephone with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain. “At that point here was no sense of timing as far as when the takedown would take place,’’ the official said.

That began to change late Tuesday and early Wednesday, and by Wednesday afternoon, with the arrests imminent, Ms. Townsend placed her call to Mr. Bush at the ranch. Though the arrests continued through the night, Mr. Bush was not awakened.

“By the time he went to bed more than half the operation had already taken place,” the official said. “The key people that we were particularly concerned about had already been arrested.”

By Thursday morning, with Mr. Bush headed for Wisconsin to deliver a speech on the economy during the metal factory tour, the question at the White House was how the president should address the public.

Last month, Mr. Bush used a speech on the economy at the port of Miami to talk about the Middle East. This time, he spoke directly to the press corps at the airport, in the shadow of Air Force One at a microphone set up for his arrival.

“The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation,” Mr. Bush said, adding: “Travelers are going to be inconvenienced as a result of the steps we’ve taken. I urge their patience and ask them to be vigilant.”

The remarks lasted two minutes, and the president took no questions.

Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting from Waco, Tex., for this article.

Bush, on a Quick Trip From His Texas Ranch, Says Americans Are Safer Than Before Sept. 11, NYT, 11.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/world/europe/11prexy.html

Bush says US at war with "Islamic fascists"

Thu Aug 10, 2006 12:21 PM ET
Reuters
By Steve Holland

GREEN BAY, Wisconsin (Reuters) - President Bush said on Thursday a plot foiled by Britain to blow up flights to the United States was a "stark reminder" that the United States is "at war with Islamic fascists."

Bush said that the United States was safer than before the September 11 attacks, but it was still not completely safe and it would be a mistake to believe there was no longer a threat.

Bush launched a global war on terrorism after the 2001 hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington killed nearly 3,000 people. Faced with public discontent over the 3-year-old war in Iraq, he often tells Americans the threat remains.

Bush, speaking briefly on a visit to Green Bay, Wisconsin, said the foiled plane plot was "..a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

The U.S. government heightened security on passenger planes and barred air travelers from carrying liquids on Thursday after Britain said it had foiled the plot.

U.S. officials said the aim was to blow up the planes in flight. Two officials said there were no signs the attacks were directed at any one city, but they might have taken place on flights heading to major U.S. cities.

AL QAEDA?

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the Islamic militant group al Qaeda might have been involved.

"This operation is in some respects suggestive of an al Qaeda plot, but because the investigation is still under way, we cannot yet form a definitive conclusion. We're going to wait until all the facts are in," he told a news conference.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush had talked twice by phone with British Prime Minister Tony Blair about the plot -- on Sunday and Wednesday. Bush called the cooperation with Britain, the chief U.S. ally in Iraq, excellent.

The Department of Homeland Security said it took the unprecedented step of raising the threat level for commercial flights originating in the United Kingdom to "severe" or red, its highest level.

The threat level for all other commercial aircraft operating in or destined for the United States would be raised to "high," or orange, Chertoff said.

The United States said the plot involved liquid explosive ingredients, and U.S. Homeland Security barred passengers from carrying liquids, including beverages, hair gels and lotions, aboard planes.

(Additional reporting by Deborah Charles, Todd Eastham, David Morgan in Washington)

Bush says US at war with "Islamic fascists", R, 10.8.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-08-10T162114Z_01_N10383008_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-BRITAIN-USA.xml&src=081006_1507_TOPSTORY_bomb_plot_foiled%3A_uk

Transcript

President Bush's Statement

August 10, 2006
The New York Times

The following is President Bush's statement on increased security in the United States.

PRESIDENT BUSH: The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to -- to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation.

I want to thank the government of Tony Blair and officials in the United Kingdom for their good work in busting this plot. I thank the officials in Washington, D.C., and around our country who gather intelligence and who work to protect the American people. The cooperation on this -- on this venture was excellent. Cooperation between U.K. and U.S. authorities and officials was solid, and the cooperation amongst agencies within our government was excellent.

The -- this country is safer than it was prior to 9/11. We've taken a lot of measures to protect the American people. But obviously we're still not completely safe, because there are people that still plot and people who want to harm us for what we believe in. It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America.

And that is why we have given our officials the tools they need to protect our people.

It -- travelers are going to be inconvenienced as a result of the steps we've taken. I urge their patience and ask them to be vigilant. The inconveniences occurs because we will take the steps necessary to protect the American people.

Again, I appreciate the close cooperation between our government and the government of the United Kingdom. The American people need to know we live in a dangerous world, but our government will do everything we can to protect our people from those dangers.

Thank you.

President Bush's Statement, NYT, 10.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/10/world/europe/10text-bush.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

US seeks to shield its war interrogators: report

Wed Aug 9, 2006 2:05 AM ET
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel would not face prosecution for humiliating or degrading wartime prisoners under amendments to a war crimes law drafted by the Bush administration, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

The amendments are part of the administration's three-pronged response to a June 29 Supreme Court ruling that struck down as illegal and a violation of the Geneva Conventions the military tribunal system set up to try Guantanamo prisoners, the Post said.

The court's ruling gave prisoners captured in Afghanistan protections under the Geneva Conventions, which the administration previously maintained did not apply to them.

Citing unidentified U.S. officials, the newspaper said the administration plans to amend the 1996 War Crimes Act, which makes it a crime to violate the Geneva Conventions, by narrowing the number of potential criminal prosecutions.

Only 10 specific categories of illegal acts against wartime detainees, including torture, murder, rape and hostage-taking, could be prosecuted under the amendments, it said.

The list would not include the kinds of humiliating acts, like forced nakedness, used at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison which fall short of torture but are nevertheless barred by the Geneva Conventions as "outrages upon personal dignity," it reported.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told a Senate Committee last week the language of the Geneva Conventions was too vague and needed to be better defined by Congress.

Gonzales said Congress should provide a list of offenses that would constitute crimes under the Geneva Conventions' requirement for humane treatment of prisoners. He said that would clarify rules for U.S. interrogators, who would be subject to felony charges for violations.

The amendments, which have not been released, are part of broader proposed legislation on military courts that is still under discussion, but key officials have already embraced their substance, the Post said.

There have been no criminal prosecutions under the War Crimes Act in the 10 years since it was enacted, it said.

The administration's two other responses to the Supreme Court's rejection of its military tribunal system have been to seek legislation blocking Guantanamo prisoners' right to sue to enforce their newly won protections; and to draft a bill that replaces an absolute human rights standard with consideration of intelligence-gathering needs during interrogations.

US seeks to shield its war interrogators: report, R, 9.8.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-08-09T060507Z_01_N09207907_RTRUKOC_0_US-RIGHTS-CRIME-USA.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-2

Bush makes immigration overhaul argument on border

Thu Aug 3, 2006 5:59 PM ET
Reuters
By Steve Holland

MISSION, Texas (Reuters) - President George W. Bush argued on Thursday for combining tougher border enforcement with a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants as he clung to a position at odds with conservative Republicans.

Bush stopped within a stone's throw of the Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico border on the way to his Crawford, Texas, ranch for 10 days of vacation mixed with work on the Middle East and other issues. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to join him for the weekend.

He toured a section of the border where Border Patrol agents use a "skybox" device that elevates them above ground so they can track border movements closely and uses high-tech gadgets, such as infrared.

"We want to send a clear message, we will enforce our border," Bush said at an outdoors event to several dozen people who fanned themselves against the withering heat.

While stressing the need for tougher enforcement of the porous border to limit entry of illegal immigrants, Bush sounded a note of compassion for illegal immigrants seeking to scratch out a living in the United States.

"There are people doing jobs that Americans aren't doing, the people who come across this border to do work Americans are not doing, and it makes sense to let them come on a temporary basis in a legal way," Bush said.

There are an estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States and border security has become a volatile issue that could play a role in November congressional elections.

Congressional conservatives want tighter enforcement of northern and southern borders, while others, including Bush, back legislation that would put most of the immigrants in the country illegally on a path to U.S. citizenship.

Politicians of varying stripes recognize the need to toughen border enforcement, due partly to concerns about terrorists crossing illegally into the United States.

With few days left in this year's legislative session, doubts are rising the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives can agree on a compromise immigration reform bill.

"I expect the United States Congress to do its duty and pass comprehensive immigration reform," Bush said.

U.S. House Republican leaders plans to hold 21 hearings across the country through August to build support for tough border security measures to curb illegal immigration.

White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters traveling with Bush there were "active negotiations" going on about immigration with leaders of Congress.

"He understands the legislative process. It doesn't always operate neatly, quickly or according to timelines," he said.

Bush makes immigration overhaul argument on border, R, 3.8.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-08-03T215916Z_01_N03456886_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-2

Intelligence

Senator Faults Bid to Classify Report on Iraq

August 4, 2006
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee lashed out at the White House on Thursday, criticizing attempts by the Bush administration to keep secret parts of a report on the role Iraqi exiles played in building the case for war against Iraq.

The chairman, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, said his committee had completed the first two parts of its investigation of prewar intelligence. But he chastised the White House for efforts to classify most of the part that examines intelligence provided to the Bush administration by the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group.

“I have been disappointed by this administration’s unwillingness to declassify material contained in these reports, material which I believe better informs the public, but that does not — I repeat, does not — jeopardize intelligence operations, sources and methods,” Mr. Roberts said in a statement issued Thursday.

One completed section of the Senate report is said to be a harsh critique of how information from the Iraqi exile group made its way into intelligence community reports, said people who have read the report but spoke on condition of anonymity because it is still classified.

The second section compares prewar assessments of Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs and its links to terrorism with what American troops and intelligence operatives have found since the war began in March 2003.

The two parts of the report will not be made public for weeks, and neither is likely to present conclusions very different from past investigations into faulty prewar intelligence. Yet the current dispute is a sign that more than three years into the conflict, emotions remain raw over the role that the Iraqi group and its leader, Ahmad Chalabi — who was close to Pentagon officials and Vice President Dick Cheney — played in the administration’s decision to wage war against Saddam Hussein.

The group’s role in building the case against Mr. Hussein has been the source of fierce ideological arguments in Washington for years. The report also concludes that the group did provide useful information regarding the disposition of Iraq’s military. In the end, four Republicans on the committee and all seven Democratic members approved of the section of the report about the group. Four Republicans voted against it.

Congressional officials said Thursday that they were puzzled by White House efforts to keep large portions of that section classified. Mr. Roberts pledged in his statement to maintain the pressure to declassify all of the Senate’s conclusions.

“This Committee will not settle for anything less,” he said. “Neither will the American people.” A spokesman for the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, whose office is in charge of the declassification, declined to comment.

The committee approved the other section of the report 14 to 1.

Senator Faults Bid to Classify Report on Iraq, NYT, 4.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04intel.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

White House Asks Congress to Define War Crimes

August 3, 2006
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales pressed Congress on Wednesday to refine the definition of war crimes prohibited under the Geneva Conventions, as the Bush administration and lawmakers continued to debate the rules for treatment and trials of terror suspects.

Administration proposals on how to bring suspects to trial had moved closer to what key senators have said they will demand, but two hearings on Capitol Hill on Wednesday foreshadowed a fight over the definition of coercive interrogation tactics.

And administration lawyers and senators continued to clash over evidence obtained through coercion or hearsay and how to deal with classified evidence.

The Supreme Court ruled in late June that terror suspects must be extended the protections outlined in a provision of the Geneva Conventions that prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, and in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”

Mr. Gonzales argued that the language of the provision was too vague. And because the federal War Crimes Act passed a decade ago makes it a felony to violate that provision, he said that troops could be prosecuted for interrogation tactics considered too harsh. Congress, he said, could “help by defining our obligations” under the provision, known as Common Article Three.

Mr. Gonzales, publicly discussing the administration’s new proposal for detainee trials for the first time since the court’s ruling, said it would offer legislation that included a proposal to change the War Crimes Act, to bring “clarity” in defining which violations of Common Article Three rise to the level of war crimes.

“The surest way to achieve that clarity and certainty, in our view, is for Congress to set forth a definite and clear list of offenses serious enough to be considered war crimes,” he said.

But senators said Congress should not endorse any treatment it would not want used on American soldiers..

“We must remain a nation that is different from, and above, our enemies,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

The differences between the administration and the Senate were most pronounced when Mr. McCain asked Mr. Gonzales whether statements obtained through “illegal and inhumane treatment” should be admissible. Mr. Gonzales paused for almost a minute before responding.

“The concern that I would have about such a prohibition is, what does it mean?” he said. “How do you define it? I think if we could all reach agreement about the definition of cruel and inhumane and degrading treatment, then perhaps I could give you an answer.”

Mr. McCain, a former prisoner of war, said that using illegal and inhumane interrogation tactics and allowing the evidence to be introduced would be “a radical departure” from longstanding United States policy.

The court ruled in June that the military tribunals that President Bush had established for suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, violated international law and were not authorized by federal statute.

Lawyers from the Defense and Justice Departments initially tried to persuade Congress simply to approve the tribunals. By Wednesday’s hearings, the administration had changed its position. “What we are considering now is a better product,” Mr. Gonzales said.

He said the administration proposed enacting a new code of military justice modeled on court-martial procedures.

The new proposal departs from the initial tribunals in several ways. The presiding officer would be a military judge, for example, and would rule on evidence but not participate in the final verdict. The jury would have 5 members, instead of 3, with 12 in death penalty cases. Conviction would require two-thirds of the jury to agree, and unanimity in death cases.

But the proposal also departs from court-martial procedures, in that suspects would not be entitled to Miranda warnings, or to Article 32 proceedings, which are similar to a grand jury. It would allow the introduction of hearsay evidence that the judge ruled “reliable” and would share classified evidence with the defense counsel, but not necessarily the defendant.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said it would “not serve us well” to ignore the military rules against hearsay.

But Mr. Graham supported a move to refine what kind of treatment violated the War Crimes Act, under which, he said, a slap could be a crime.

White House Asks Congress to Define War Crimes, NYT, 3.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/washington/03detain.html

Physical Shows Bush Fit but Heavier

August 2, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 — President Bush continues to enjoy robust health but has put on a little weight, the White House said Tuesday after the president’s annual physical examination.

“He’s up to 196, I believe,” Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said at a news briefing. That is just over four pounds more than Mr. Bush, who is nearly 6 feet tall, weighed a year ago.

Mr. Snow said Mr. Bush’s standing heart rate was 46 beats a minute and his cholesterol 174. Both are little changed from a year ago and are normal for a fit man Mr. Bush’s age. He turned 60 on July 6.

Mr. Bush said, “I’m doing fine, my health is fine,” after being examined at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. And he said he knew why he had put on weight since last summer: “I probably ate too many birthday cakes.”

The White House released several pages of details on Mr. Bush’s four-hour physical. “The doctors once again have found the president fit for duty,” Mr. Snow said, “and have every reasonable expectation that he will remain so for the duration of his presidency.”

The president takes no routine prescription medication. He quit drinking alcohol years ago (he smokes an occasional cigar), and he exercises regularly. He switched to mountain biking after being forced to stop jogging because of a torn calf muscle he sustained in 2003. He also enjoys clearing brush at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., where he will go Thursday for a vacation.

Previous administrations have been far less candid about the health of the president, arguably with profound consequences. Grover Cleveland’s operations for jaw cancer in 1893 were kept secret, as were the debilitating effects of Woodrow Wilson’s stroke in 1919.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, who contracted polio at age 39, was almost never photographed in a wheelchair. Just before he was elected to a fourth term, in 1944, his personal physician, Vice Adm. Ross T. McIntire, pronounced him “perfectly O.K.” despite what Admiral McIntire described as a recent bout of flu and bronchitis.

Of course, he was not O.K. Admiral McIntire was an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist. A cardiologist later diagnosed the president’s ailments as hypertension and heart disease.

John F. Kennedy’s projection of youthful “vigah” was a creation of his image-makers. His many ailments included Addison’s disease, an affliction of the adrenal gland that almost killed him, and excruciating back pain from osteoporosis.

Mr. Bush’s weight has fluctuated. It was 194.5 pounds in June 2000, before he became president, 189 in 2001 and 2002. From Aug. 4, 2002, to Dec. 11, 2004, he gained 10.6 pounds. His doctors attributed some of that gain to increased muscle mass from exercise. Mr. Bush blamed doughnuts on the campaign trail.

Lawrence K. Altman contributed reporting from New York for this article.

Physical Shows Bush Fit but Heavier, NYT, 2.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/washington/02bush.html

The President

Bush’s Embrace of Israel Shows Gap With Father

August 2, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 — When they first met as United States president and Israeli prime minister, George W. Bush made clear to Ariel Sharon he would not follow in the footsteps of his father.

The first President Bush had been tough on Israel, especially the Israeli settlements in occupied lands that Mr. Sharon had helped develop. But over tea in the Oval Office that day in March 2001 — six months before the Sept. 11 attacks tightened their bond — the new president signaled a strong predisposition to support Israel.

“He told Sharon in that first meeting that I’ll use force to protect Israel, which was kind of a shock to everybody,” said one person present, given anonymity to speak about a private conversation. “It was like, ‘Whoa, where did that come from?’ “

That embrace of Israel represents a generational and philosophical divide between the Bushes, one that is exacerbating the friction that has been building between their camps of advisers and loyalists over foreign policy more generally. As the president continues to stand by Israel in its campaign against Hezbollah — even after a weekend attack that left many Lebanese civilians dead and provoked international condemnation — some advisers to the father are expressing deep unease with the Israel policies of the son.

“The current approach simply is not leading toward a solution to the crisis, or even a winding down of the crisis,” said Richard N. Haass, who advised the first President Bush on the Middle East and worked as a senior State Department official in the current president’s first term. “There are times at which a hands-off policy can be justified. It’s not obvious to me that this is one of them.”

Unlike the first President Bush, who viewed himself as a neutral arbiter in the delicate politics of the Middle East, the current president sees his role through the prism of the fight against terrorism. This President Bush, unlike his father, also has deep roots in the evangelical Christian community, a staunchly pro-Israeli component of his conservative Republican base.

The first President Bush came to the Oval Office with long diplomatic experience, strong ties to Arab leaders and a realpolitik view that held the United States should pursue its own strategic interests, not high-minded goals like democracy, even if it meant negotiating with undemocratic governments like Syria and Iran.

The current President Bush has practically cut off Syria and Iran, overlaying his fight against terrorism with the aim of creating what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls “a new Middle East.” In allying himself so closely with Israel, he has departed not just from his father’s approach but also from those of all his recent predecessors, who saw themselves first and foremost as brokers in the region.

In a speech Monday in Miami, Mr. Bush offered what turned out to be an implicit criticism of his father’s approach.

“The current crisis is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the Middle East,” Mr. Bush said. “For decades, the status quo in the Middle East permitted tyranny and terror to thrive. And as we saw on September the 11th, the status quo in the Middle East led to death and destruction in the United States.”

Now, as Mr. Bush faces growing pressure from Arab leaders and European allies to end the current wave of violence, these differences between father and son have come into sharp relief.

“There is a danger in a policy in which there is no daylight whatsoever between the government of Israel and the government of the United States,” said Aaron David Miller, an Arab-Israeli negotiator for both Bush administrations, who has high praise for James A. Baker III, the first President Bush’s secretary of state. “Bush One and James Baker would never have allowed that to happen.”

Other advisers who served the elder Mr. Bush are critical as well, faulting the current administration for having “put diplomacy on the back burner in the hope that unattractive regimes would fall,” in the words of Mr. Haass.

Whether the disagreement extends to father and son is unclear. The president has been generally critical of the Middle East policies of his predecessors in both parties, but has never criticized his father explicitly. The first President Bush has made it a practice not to comment on the administration of his son, but his spokesman, Tom Frechette, said he supports the younger Mr. Bush “100 percent.”

Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser, who has been openly critical of the current president on Iraq, did not return calls seeking comment. He wrote an opinion article in The Washington Post on Sunday calling on the United States to “seize this opportunity” to reach a comprehensive settlement for resolving the conflict of more than half a century between Israel and the Palestinians. Mr. Baker also did not return calls.

The differences between father and son are partly to do with style.

“Bush the father was from a certain generation of political leaders and foreign policy establishment types,” said William Kristol, the neo-conservative thinker who worked for the first Bush administration and is now editor of The Weekly Standard. “He had many years of dealings with leading Arab governments; he was close to the Saudi royal family. The son is less so. He’s got much more affection for Israel, less affection for the House of Saud.”

That affection, Mr. Bush’s aides say, can be traced partly to his first and only trip to Israel, in 1998. It was a formative experience for Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas. He took a helicopter ride — his guide, as it happened, was Mr. Sharon, then the foreign minister — and, looking down, was struck by how tiny and vulnerable Israel seemed.

“He said that when he took that tour and he looked down, he thought, ‘We have driveways in Texas longer than that, “ said Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary. “And after the United States was attacked, he understood how it was for Israel to be attacked.”

Others say Mr. Bush cannot help looking at Israel through the prism of his Christian faith. “There is a religiously inspired connection to Israel in which he feels, as president, a responsibility for Israel’s survival,” said Martin S. Indyk, who was President Clinton’s ambassador to Israel and kept that post for several months under President Bush. He also suggested that Republican politics were at work, saying Mr. Bush came into office determined to “build his Christian base.”

But the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, dismissed that idea, telling reporters last week that Mr. Bush does not view the current conflict through a “theological lens.”

Mr. Bush has to some extent played the traditional peacemaker role in the region, especially in dealing with relations between Israel and the Palestinians. He called for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, set out a “road map” to achieving a lasting peace and was critical of some of Mr. Sharon’s policies.

But he has drawn a sharp distinction between the Palestinian people and Israel’s conflicts with what he regards as terrorist organizations. He came into office refusing to meet with Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and cut off Mr. Arafat entirely in early 2002, after the Israeli Navy captured a ship carrying weapons intended for the Palestinian Authority. That foreshadowed the way he is now dealing with Hezbollah.

His father’s pre-9/11 policies were more concerned with the traditional goals of peace, or at least stability, in the Middle East. Relations between the first President Bush and his Israeli counterpart, Yitzhak Shamir, hit a low point when Mr. Bush refused Israel $10 billion in loan guarantees to resettle Soviet Jews. And Mr. Baker, as secretary of state, was once so frustrated with Israeli officials that he scornfully recited his office phone number and told them to call when they were serious about peace in the Middle East.

But Mr. Bush has enjoyed singularly warm relations, particularly after 9/11. “It is this event, 9/11, that caused the president to really associate himself with Israel, with this notion that now, for the first time, Americans can feel on their skin what Israelis have been feeling all along,” said Shai Feldman, an Israeli scholar at Brandeis University who has been in Tel Aviv since the hostilities began. “There is huge, huge appreciation here for the president.”

Bush’s Embrace of Israel Shows Gap With Father, NYT, 2.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/washington/02prexy.html?hp&ex=1154577600&en=42c7531c0d1cc236&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Democratic Leaders Ask Bush to Redeploy Troops in Iraq

August 1, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, July 31 — Leading Congressional Democrats, after months of division over Iraq, have called on President Bush to begin a phased redeployment of troops by the end of this year, a unified statement signaling they have concluded that the war could hurt Republicans in the midterm elections.

The letter called on American forces in Iraq to make a transition to a “more limited mission” dealing with counterterrorism and training and logistical support of Iraq security forces.

“In the interests of American national security, our troops, and our taxpayers, the open-ended commitment in Iraq that you have embraced cannot and should not be sustained,” said the letter, dated July 30 and released Monday. It was signed by a dozen Democratic leaders, including Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate minority leader, and Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader.

“Mr. President, simply staying the course in Iraq is not working,” the Democrats wrote. “We need to take a new direction. We believe these recommendations comprise an effective alternative to the current open-ended commitment, which is not producing the progress in Iraq we would all like to see.”

As a matter of policy, the proposals by the Democrats did not, for the most part, break new ground, Democratic aides said.

But the fact that most of the Democratic leadership had unified around a position — and presented it so forcefully — strongly suggests that the politics surrounding the war are changing.

Ken Mehlman, the Republican national chairman, criticized Democrats on Monday for the statement. “The fact that that the Democrats have sent a letter to the president saying basically, set a deadline and tell the terrorists that we are leaving, in my opinion, clarifies the choice this fall,” he said.

Democratic Leaders Ask Bush to Redeploy Troops in Iraq, NYT, 1.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/washington/01pullout.html

The President

Bush Calls Attack on Qana ‘Awful,’ but Refrains From Calling for Immediate Cease-Fire

August 1, 2006
The New York Times
By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON, July 31 — President Bush used the word “awful” to describe the lethal Israeli air attack on an apartment building in Qana, Lebanon, that killed dozens of civilians over the weekend, but he continued to resist calling on Israel to accept an immediate cease-fire.

Facing one of the most awkward moments in recent relations with Israel, he described the current Middle East crisis as part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror. He said the United States remained steadfast in its support of Israel’s right to defend itself against cross-border attacks by Hezbollah militants. But he also said the administration was working urgently through the United Nations to fashion what he called a “sustainable” cessation of hostilities.

He sought to broaden the context of the current fighting, saying that Iran and Syria must end their support of terrorism in the Middle East and beyond.

“For decades, the status quo in the Middle East permitted tyranny and terror to thrive,” Mr. Bush said at an appearance before members of the Coast Guard in Miami. “And as we saw on Sept. 11, the status quo in the Middle East led to death and destruction in the United States, and it had to change.”

He did not refer directly to the airstrike on the village of Qana in his public appearance in Miami, but in a later interview with Fox News Channel, he said that he wanted to see the killing in southern Lebanon end.

“And look, it’s a terrible situation when innocent people lose their lives,” Mr. Bush said. “And yesterday’s situation was awful. We, I understand that. But it’s also awful that a million Israelis are worried about rockets being fired from their, from their neighbor to the north.”

Mr. Bush has not spoken directly with Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, about the Qana bombing and did not plan to do so, a White House spokesman said Monday.

Support for Israel remained strong in Congress but as the military and civilian crisis grew, Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, said that American friendship with Israel had to be balanced by concern for relations with Muslim nations. He urged Mr. Bush to become more deeply engaged in the region and broker an end to the fighting quickly.

“The sickening slaughter on both sides must end now,” Senator Hagel said in a floor statement. “President Bush must call for an immediate cease-fire. This madness must stop.”

White House officials said they believed that the president was not yet facing serious erosion of domestic political support for his approach to the Middle East, but that they hoped the administration’s diplomacy would bear fruit over the next few days.

If the White House seemed shaken on Sunday, by Monday it had turned back forcefully to the line it had held since the crisis began nearly three weeks ago.

“In terms of the overall outlines of the strategy, they are the same,” Tony Snow, Mr. Bush’s spokesman, said in a telephone interview. “Nor are you going to change your approach to what you think a real effective solution to the problem in Lebanon is, which is to have Hezbollah cease operating as an independent force.”

President Bush told Fox News that one element of the emerging plan for a cease-fire was to restore Lebanese military control over its southern border with Israel, which the nascent government in Beirut had essentially ceded to armed Hezbollah fighters.

“We want that young democracy in Lebanon to succeed,” Mr. Bush said. “And one way to help it succeed is to help the Lebanese Army move to the south, and then, with help from forces from elsewhere, begin to bring some security to the region, for the sake of the Lebanese people and the Israelis.”

President Bush planned to meet with Secretary Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley on Monday night to discuss strategy for dealing with the crisis.

Helene Cooper and Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting for this article.

Bush Calls Attack on Qana ‘Awful,’ but Refrains From Calling for Immediate Cease-Fire, NYT, 1.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/world/middleeast/01prexy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Bush Ties Battle With Hezbollah to War on Terror

July 31, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID STOUT

WASHINGTON, July 31 — President Bush described Israel’s battle with Hezbollah as part of a much wider struggle against terrorism today, as he once again embraced a pillar of his foreign policy: his faith in the power of democracy to bring peace to the region.

“The current crisis is part of a larger struggle between the forces of freedom and the forces of terror in the Middle East,” Mr. Bush said in a speech at the Coast Guard Command in Miami.

“For decades, the status quo in the Middle East permitted tyranny and terror to thrive,” the president said. “And as we saw on Sept. 11, the status quo in the Middle East led to death and destruction in the United States, and it had to change.”

Mr. Bush mourned the loss of “innocent life,” both in Israel and in Lebanon, where Israel’s attempts to subdue Hezbollah have killed scores of civilians. But he said, as he has repeatedly, that “Israel is exercising its right to defend itself,” and he said again that any cease-fire must be lasting.

In linking the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush sounded the same theme he has often embraced to describe the American-led campaign in Iraq: part of a struggle to root out hatred and tyranny and replace them with peace and democracy.

He repeated his insistence that the drive to plant democracy in lands where tyranny and terror have deep roots is pragmatic as well as idealistic. “This task is long; it is difficult work,” he said. “But it is necessary work.”

There was no immediate reaction to Mr. Bush’s speech here in the sweltering capital, with most members of Congress having gone home to campaign. Just before his speech, Mr. Bush toured the Port of Miami aboard a Coast Guard boat. He hailed the United Nations Security Council’s passage of a resolution giving Iran a month to suspend its uranium-enrichment program, or face sanctions, as “a common message, a unified message.”

The lectern from which Mr. Bush spoke had a small air-conditioning unit, enabling him to look cool and comfortable in the sunshine. The president was applauded repeatedly by an audience that included his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, when he ticked off staples of his domestic agenda: low taxes, free trade and general encouragement of the entrepreneurial spirit. The president carried Florida by a comfortable margin in the 2004 election, four years after capturing Florida’s electoral votes — and with them, the presidency — by a razor-thin margin.

“When democracy spreads in the Middle East, the people of that troubled region will have a better future, the terrorists will lose their safe havens and their recruits, and the United States of America will be more secure,” Mr. Bush said. “The hard work of helping people realize the benefits of liberty is laying the foundation of peace for generations to come.”

Mr. Bush was in Florida for a political fund-raising event. He delivered his speech as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was flying home from the Middle East after declaring that there was an “emerging consensus” for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah that could be reached this week.

But the president and his top aides have resisted pressure to call for an immediate cease-fire, and Mr. Bush made it clear today that he has not wavered. “She is working urgently to get a sustainable cease-fire, a cease-fire which will last,” Mr. Bush said of Ms. Rice. “We’re going to work with our allies to bring before the United Nations Security Council a resolution that will end the violence and lay the groundwork for lasting peace in the Middle East.”

Mr. Bush said that for any peace to be lasting, the Lebanese government must have sole control over its own territory, and that a multinational force must be sent to Lebanon at once to help deliver humanitarian aid. Hezbollah now has both a political presence in the Lebanese government and a military presence in southern Lebanon, which it uses as a base to stage raids on neighboring Israel and rain rockets on its villages.

The president said that a lasting peace also depended on Iran’s ending its financial and military support for terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, and that Syria must end its support for terrorism and “respect the sovereignty of Lebanon.” Syria has long exercised influence in Lebanese affairs and had troops in Lebanon for many years.

Bush Ties Battle With Hezbollah to War on Terror, NYT, 31.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/world/middleeast/31cnd-prexy.html?hp&ex=1154404800&en=3eb0d0e2793d09c6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush sticks to call for sustained peace in Mideast

Mon Jul 31, 2006 11:12 AM ET
Reuters
By Caren Bohan

MIAMI (Reuters) - President Bush said he would seek U.N. action this week on ending the fighting in southern Lebanon but resisted an immediate ceasefire despite growing pressure a day after a deadly Israeli air strike.

"I assured the people here that we will work toward a plan at the United Nations Security Council that addresses the root causes of the problem so that whatever comes out of the Security Council will be able to last and that the people of Lebanon and Israel will be able to remain in peace," Bush said.

"We want there to be a long-lasting peace, one that is sustainable," he told reporters at a restaurant where he was meeting with Cuban American business leaders.

International pressure for an immediate ceasefire increased after Israel's bombing of the Lebanese village of Qana on Sunday that killed at least 54 civilians.

After that attack, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday brokered a 48-hour partial break in the Israeli air campaign against Hizbollah and was returning from the Middle East to push for a U.N. Security Council resolution on a permanent ceasefire.

While calling on Israel to show more restraint, the United States has said the fault for the bombing lies with Hizbollah and Bush underscored that view in a visit later at the port of Miami.

"As we work with friends and allies, it's important to remember this crisis began with Hizbollah's unprovoked terrorist attack against Israel," Bush said.

"Israel is exercising its right to defend itself and we mourn the loss of innocent life, he said.

Bush also accused Iran on Monday of supplying weapons and financial support to Hizbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and called on Tehran to stop the practice.

"Iran must end its financial support and supply of weapons to terrorist groups like Hizbollah," Bush said, adding: "Syria must end its support for terror and respect the sovereignty of Lebanon."

Bush will meet with Rice when he returns to Washington later on Monday. She said she believed a truce could be reached this week between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

Bush sticks to call for sustained peace in Mideast, R, 31.7.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-07-31T151208Z_01_WAT006137_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-MIDEAST.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-politicsNews-2

Bush says Iran, Syria must end support for Hizbollah

Mon Jul 31, 2006 10:38 AM ET
Reuters

MIAMI (Reuters) - President Bush accused Iran on Monday of supplying weapons and financial support to Hizbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon and called on Tehran to stop the practice.

"Iran must end its financial support and supply of weapons to terrorist groups like Hizbollah," Bush said, adding: "Syria must end its support for terror and respect the sovereignty of Lebanon."

Bush says Iran, Syria must end support for Hizbollah, R, 31.7.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsnews&storyID=2006-07-31T143511Z_01_WAT006137_RTRUKOC_0_US-BUSH-MIDEAST.xml&src=073106_1041_TOPSTORY_us_seeks_ceasefire

Op-Ed Columnist

A Slip of the Pen

July 31, 2006
By WALTER DELLINGER
The New York Times

Chapel Hill, N.C.

“THIS is one of those historic moments. The threat to our Republic posed by presidential signing statements is both imminent and real unless immediate corrective action is taken.”

That is what the head of the American Bar Association said last week as he unveiled a widely publicized report by an association panel criticizing presidential signing statements, by which a president announces his intention not to comply with a provision of a signed law because he believes it to be unconstitutional. The report catalogues President Bush’s highly questionable use of such statements, including his apparent intent to execute only selectively legislation he signed last year banning cruel treatment of prisoners in American custody.

Ultimately, however, the bar association report misdiagnoses the problem. It erroneously interprets the Constitution as forbidding the president — any president, in any circumstance — to declare, while signing a bill into law, that the bill has an unconstitutional provision that he will not enforce. Paradoxically, the report studiously avoids addressing the real problem, which is not the president’s right to act on his constitutional views, but that some of this president’s constitutional views are fundamentally wrong.

Until the bar association panel issued its report, I had thought the matter was settled. Every modern president has agreed that there are circumstances in which the president may appropriately decline to enforce a statute he deems unconstitutional. There is, moreover, significant judicial approval of the practice, most notably the Supreme Court’s 1926 decision in Myers v. United States, in which the Court sustained President Calvin Coolidge’s refusal to comply with a law that would have restricted the executive’s right to fire postmasters. Not a single member of the Court suggested the president had acted improperly in disregarding the statute.

A president’s ability to decline to enforce unconstitutional laws is an important safeguard of both separation of powers and individual liberty. What if Congress enacted legislation requiring a president to forcibly seize a brain-dead patient and place her on artificial life support, contrary to her rights? Does the bar association panel really believe the president would have to comply?

Or suppose President Bush signed a law, passed by a lame-duck Congress, which prohibited the removal of the defense secretary for 10 years. If the next president complied with the statute, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could remain in office against the wishes of the new president, and no one would have standing to challenge this violation in court.

If a president may decline to execute an unconstitutional law enacted before he assumed office, he should retain that right in the case of an unconstitutional provision of a bill he signs himself. Of course, if presented with a bill that is entirely unconstitutional, the proper response is a veto.

But most laws today are passed as part of multiprovision, omnibus legislation. Such measures may contain urgently needed appropriations, or have been passed by a fragile coalition or a Congress that has adjourned. When a bill with a thousand provisions includes one that is unconstitutional, the Constitution does not force the president to choose between two starkly unpalatable options: veto the entire bill or enforce an unconstitutional provision. A signing statement that announces the president’s intention to disregard the invalid provision offers a valuable, and lawful, alternative.

The bar association panel’s report states that its recommendations should not be viewed “as an attack on the current president.” Yet it is precisely this administration’s sweeping claims of unilateral executive power to disregard statutes that should be the focus of debate. Distracted by President Bush’s abuse of signing statements, the panel failed to address the real and significant risk posed by the administration’s extravagant claims of unilateral authority to govern.

In defending the legitimacy of President Bush’s signing statements, senior administration officials have repeatedly, and correctly, cited a 1994 memorandum I wrote as head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. They have largely ignored, however, the memorandum’s cautionary guidelines.

A president, the memo stated, should presume laws are valid and accord great deference to Congress’s view that its acts are consistent with the Constitution. A president should also recognize that, while the Supreme Court is not the sole arbiter of constitutionality, it plays a special role in resolving such questions.

In some instances, only a president’s decision to refuse to execute a law will create the opportunity for judicial review of the disputed issue. In other cases, the reverse may be true. Proper deference to the court, the memo suggested, generally favors whichever course of action facilitates the court’s involvement.

If conscientiously followed, these principles reduce the risk that a president will assert a dubious claim of unconstitutionality in order to sidestep a law he simply doesn’t like.

The Bush administration’s frequent and seemingly cavalier refusal to enforce laws, which is aggravated by its avoidance of judicial review and even public disclosure of its actions, places it at odds with these principles and with predecessors of both parties.

It is a mistake, however, to respond to these abuses by denying to this and future presidents the essential authority, in appropriate and limited circumstances, to decline to execute unconstitutional laws. A president is right to use signing statements to explain how he intends to faithfully execute the law and uphold the Constitution.

Walter Dellinger, a law professor at Duke University, was the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel from 1993 to 1996.

A Slip of the Pen, NYT, 31.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/opinion/31Dellinger.html

Editorial

The Court Under Siege

July 29, 2006
The New York Times

One big thing we’ve learned from watching President Bush’s assault on the balance of powers is that the federal courts are the only line of defense. Congress not only lacks the spine to stand up to Mr. Bush, but is usually eager to accommodate him.

So it is especially frightening to see the administration use the debates over the prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and domestic spying to mount a new offensive against the courts.

Wiretapping: This campaign is most evident in the debate over Mr. Bush’s decision to authorize the interception of Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail.

Mr. Bush and his legal advisers claim the president is free to ignore the 1978 law requiring warrants for such wiretaps, as well as the Constitution, because the eternal war with Al Qaeda gives him commander-in-chief superpowers. But the administration knows the Supreme Court is unlikely to endorse this nonsense. So it has agreed with the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, on a bill that is a mockery of judicial process.

Under the bill, Mr. Bush would have the option, but not the obligation, to ask the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to decide whether his spying program is constitutional. The surveillance court was created for one purpose — to review applications for surveillance warrants. It is not the place to make a constitutional judgment.

The case would be heard in secret, and only Mr. Bush’s case would be made because no one would be there to argue against him. There is not even a requirement that the final judgment be made public. Worst of all, if Mr. Bush lost in the secret court, he could appeal. But if he won, there would be no appeal and the case would never go to the Supreme Court.

There is a better way of doing this — a bill by Senator Charles Schumer of New York that would allow groups or people to challenge the spying and let the courts work as they have for two centuries.

Prisoners: Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Bush violated the Geneva Conventions and American law by creating military commissions to try prisoners at Guantánamo Bay without any of the accepted safeguards of a judicial process. It rejected Mr. Bush’s notion that he could decide which people deserved civilized treatment and which did not. (Keep in mind that the majority of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay are either low-level Taliban soldiers captured in Afghanistan or innocents turned over to American troops in return for money.)

The court said Congress had to draft a law covering the prisoners that conformed to American standards of justice and to international law. But Congress had barely started hearings before the White House began circulating its own bill, which would simply endorse what Mr. Bush did rather than trying to overcome the court’s objections.

On the Geneva Conventions, for instance, the bill offers a particularly twisted bit of reasoning that says Congress has decided to interpret the conventions in such a way that everything Mr. Bush has done, or will do, conforms with their requirements. But the court firmly endorsed the Geneva Conventions, which include the requirement that a prisoner be present at his trial. The White House bill simply revokes that right.

The White House says it’s showing this draft law to the military lawyers it ignored when it formed its original policies on prisoners. Since the bill essentially mirrors the original policy, we hope those courageous lawyers object once again and that this time, the administration actually listens.

The Court Under Siege, NYT, 29.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/29/opinion/29sat1.html

Bush Cites Iran's Role in Lebanon Conflict

July 28, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:58 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush declined Thursday to criticize Israel's tactics in its continuing offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon, and gave a sharp condemnation of Iran's role in the bloody fighting.

''Hezbollah attacked Israel. I know Hezbollah is connected to Iran,'' Bush said tersely at the end of Oval Office meetings with Romanian President Traian Basescu. ''Now is the time for the world to confront this danger,'' Bush said.

The president was responding to statements from top Israeli officials that fighting could continue for several weeks more. Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said world leaders, in failing to call for an immediate cease-fire during a Rome summit, gave Israel a green light to push harder to wipe out Hezbollah.

Bush said he hoped to see the violence end ''as quickly as possible'' and repeated his call for Israel to try to limit the impact on civilians. But he suggested that the Israeli campaign has his support for as long as it takes to eliminate Hezbollah's influence in Lebanon and its ability to attack neighbor Israel.

''Now is the time to address the root cause of the problem and the root cause of the problem is terrorist groups trying to stop the advance of democracy,'' he said. ''Our objective is to make sure that those who use terrorist tactics are not rewarded.''

The Israeli offensive, which began after Hezbollah crossed the border and captured two Israeli soldiers, continued Thursday as Bush spoke. Israeli jets pounded suspected Hezbollah positions across Lebanon on Thursday, and guerrilla rockets continued to hit northern Israel.

In response, the al-Qaida terrorist network threatened new attacks, its first comment on fighting now in its third week. The videotape by Osama bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri also was the first sign that al-Qaida aimed to exploit Israel's two-pronged offensive -- against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas-linked militants in Gaza -- to rally Islamic militants.

''I'm not surprised people who use terrorist tactics would start speaking out,'' the president said. ''Here's a fellow who is in a remote region of the world putting out statements basically encouraging people to use terrorist tactics to kill innocent people to achieve their political objectives. And the United States of America stands strong against Mr. Zawahri and his types.''

The United States is isolated on the crisis from most of its allies, who want an immediate cease-fire to end the fighting. Washington is willing to give Israel more time to weaken Hezbollah, whose principal backers are Syria and Iran.

Talks are continuing about the makeup of an international peacekeeping force with State Department counselor Philip Zelikow working in Brussels with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and his staff, White House press secretary Tony Snow said. The United States believes the Lebanese army also should be strengthened so it can disarm Hezbollah.

Amid plans for consultations at the United Nations, two U.S. Middle East envoys also were continuing diplomatic talks in the region. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may return to the Middle East this weekend.

''Whatgever is done diplomatically must address the root cause and the root cause is terrorist activites,'' Bush said. ''I view this as a clash of forms of government.''

Bush Cites Iran's Role in Lebanon Conflict, NYT, 28.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Mideast.html

Bush to Sign Voting Rights Act Today

July 27, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:36 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Republican Party's majority status in Congress is in jeopardy in the fall elections. President Bush's approval ratings remain in the tank.

It's no wonder the White House has begun turning to the South Lawn to provide a high-profile backdrop as the president signs popular bills into law.

Next up -- the Voting Rights Act -- set for Thursday morning.

The bill extends for 25 years the protections of the historic 1965 law, which opened polls to millions of black Americans by outlawing racist voting practices in the South. The GOP-controlled Congress, eager to improve its standing with minorities ahead of the November elections, pushed the bill through even though key provisions were not set to expire until next year.

Later in the day, Bush is to sign another bill sure to resonate with voters in this congressional election year: legislation establishing a national Internet database designed to let law enforcement and communities know where convicted sex offenders live and work.

By contrast, Bush chose to exercise the first veto of his 5 1/2 years as president in privacy last week, no audience, no cameras, no reporters. The bill he vetoed would have expanded federally funded research of embryonic stem cells, which is opposed by social conservatives but has wide support among the rest of the public.

White House officials said an open ceremony to veto a bill seemed inappropriate, although other presidents have done just that. Forty minutes after the Oval Office veto, Bush gave a major address on the issue in the East Room, open to the press and surrounded by families who have ''adopted'' leftover frozen embryos and used them to bear children.

In May, Bush took to the South Lawn to sign into law a bill that extended $70 billion in previously passed tax cuts. That package was also seen by Republicans as an opportunity to boost the popularity of the president and the Republican-controlled Congress

The South Lawn is hardly a common venue for presidential bill-signings, which usually occur in an office building next to the White House or, for particularly important legislation, in the East Room. The majestic backyard of the White House is typically reserved for pomp-filled welcoming ceremonies for foreign leaders or large social affairs like the annual Easter egg roll.

On Wednesday, workers scurried to get the expanse of lawn ready for the Voting Rights Act signing, setting up water stations and a large stage for Bush and the bill's primary supporters.

The list of some of the 600 expected guests reads like a who's-who of prominent black leaders and civil rights veterans: the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson; friends and relatives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks; Dorothy Height, the longtime chairwoman of the National Council of Negro Women; and National Urban League head Marc Morial. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, despite its rocky history with Bush, was sending several representatives, including current president Bruce Gordon, chairman Julian Bond and former head Benjamin Hooks.

The White House also anticipated heavy participation from Capitol Hill, where a long line of lawmakers were looking for a chance to share the spotlight.

A centerpiece of the 1960s civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act ended poll taxes, literacy tests and other devices that had been used for decades to prevent blacks from voting.

In brief remarks recalling the law's original signing by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Capitol Rotunda, Bush was to promise to continue building on those legal equalities enshrined in the law, said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman.

But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi used the occasion to criticize Bush's administration for politicizing voting rights policy and weakening enforcement of the law's provisions.

''Too often, political appointees in the Bush Justice Department have injected partisan bias into the department's Voting Rights Act decisions, repeatedly overruling the non-partisan legal staff and hiring ideologues with no experience in civil rights for career vacancies. The result has been an abject failure to enforce the provisions of the Voting Rights Act,'' Reid, D-Nev., and Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement. ''With that failure, the voting rights of the American people have been diminished.''

The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 98-0 and the House 390-33. The overwhelming majorities belied the difficulties getting to that point.

Some Southern lawmakers rebelled against renewing a law that requires their states to continue to win Justice Department approval before changing any voting rules -- punishment, they said, for racist practices that were overcome long ago. The states whose voting procedures still are overseen by the federal government are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

Other conservatives balked at provisions requiring jurisdictions with large populations of non-English-speaking citizens to print ballots in languages other than English.

Bush to Sign Voting Rights Act Today, NYT, 27.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Voting-Rights.html

White House Bill Proposes System to Try Detainees

July 26, 2006
The New York Times
By DAVID S. CLOUD and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, July 25 — Legislation drafted by the Bush administration setting out new rules on bringing terror detainees to trial would allow hearsay evidence to be introduced unless it was deemed “unreliable” and would permit defendants to be excluded from their own trials if necessary to protect national security, according to a copy of the proposal.

The bill, which officials said was being circulated within the administration, is not final, but it indicates the direction of the administration’s approach for dealing with a Supreme Court decision that struck down the tribunals established to try terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The 32-page bill preserves the idea of using military commissions to prosecute terror suspects and makes modest changes in their procedural rules, including several expanded protections for defendants, many of them drawn from the military’s legal code. But the proposal also sets up a possible confrontation with lawmakers who have called for modeling the trials on the military’s rules for courts-martial, which would allow defendants more rights.

The draft measure describes court-martial procedure as “not practicable in trying enemy combatants” because doing so would “require the government to share classified information” and would exclude “hearsay evidence determined to be probative and reliable.”

President Bush reviewed the bill last week in a meeting with his top advisers, according to a senior White House official, who said the advisers told Mr. Bush that they were comfortable with the bill and were ready to present it to military lawyers. When the legislation is in its final form, the administration will have to ask a member of Congress to introduce it.

The White House would not comment on the specifics of the bill.

“We are in the middle of a process of getting reaction from the various stakeholders, and that is why we circulated a draft,” said Dana Perino, a deputy White House press secretary. “We are working to strike a balance of a fair system of justice that deals with terrorists who don’t recognize the rules of war.”

But one former White House official, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the administration was circulating the measure among military lawyers at the Pentagon with the intention of winning over Republican senators who have led the calls for using court-martial procedures, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a former military lawyer.

A copy of the draft legislation was provided to The New York Times by an official at an agency that is reviewing it. The copy was labeled “for discussion purposes only, deliberative draft, close hold,” and the official who shared it did so on condition of anonymity. The official did not express an opinion about its contents.

Mr. Graham reviewed the draft briefly last week in a meeting with administration officials but was not given a copy of it. He described the measure as “a good start,” but added, “I have some concerns.” He would not be specific, saying he wanted to withhold judgment until hearing the views of military lawyers.

Mr. Graham praised the administration for engaging in “a collaborative process” and said the measure incorporated some of his suggestions, including the requirement that a military judge be detailed to each commission.

A senior Congressional aide said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, by contrast, is believed to be more adamant that using the existing commissions with modest changes will not suffice, largely because of the danger that American troops could face similar treatment if captured abroad.

Though House Republicans are considered more supportive of the administration’s plan, it could have difficulty passing the Senate without additional changes, said Eugene R. Fidell, the president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

“I believe the sentiment on the Hill is for a much more nuanced approach that tracks much more closely with the procedures used for general courts-martial,” Mr. Fidell said. He called the administration plan “a missed opportunity.”

Rather than requiring a speedy trial for enemy combatants, the draft proposal says they “may be tried and punished at any time without limitations.” Defendants could be held until hostilities end, even if found not guilty by a commission.

Nor does the bill adhere to the military’s rules for the admissibility of evidence and witnesses because “the United States cannot safely require members of the armed forces to gather evidence on the battlefield as though they were police officers,” the proposal says.

The draft bill specifies that no matter how it is gathered, evidence “shall be admissible if the military judge” determines it has “probative value.” Hearsay statements, meaning something a witness has heard but does not know to be true, would be allowed “at the discretion of the judge unless the circumstances render it unreliable or lacking in probative value.”

The bill would also bar “statements obtained by the use of torture” from being introduced as evidence, but evidence obtained during interrogations where coercion was used would be admissible unless a military judge found it “unreliable.”

The provision allowing defendants to be excluded from a trial to prevent them from hearing classified evidence against them is likely to be among the more controversial aspects of the proposal. The bill notes that “members of Al Qaeda cannot be trusted with our nation’s secrets.” But the bill specifies that the “exclusion of the accused shall be no broader than necessary” and requires that a declassified summary of the information be given to defendants.

One of the most difficult issues the administration faces is whether a provision of the Geneva Conventions, known as Common Article Three, applies to detainees; the Supreme Court ruled that it did. The draft measure says explicitly that the Geneva Conventions “are not a source of judicially enforceable individual rights,” meaning that in the future, terror suspects like Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni held at Guantánamo whose case resulted in the Supreme Court ruling, cannot file lawsuits saying their Geneva Convention rights were violated.

Common Article 3 prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” of detainees. Administration lawyers have warned that the provision could lead to war crimes charges against American troops who use overly harsh interrogation tactics. The draft bill attempts to remove that concern by saying that a law signed last year by Mr. Bush on the treatment of detainees would “fully satisfy” the article’s requirement for humane treatment.

Officials said the bill was drafted by Steven G. Bradbury, acting assistant attorney general. On Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales met with Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, about the administration’s proposal. Mr. Gonzalez later went to the Pentagon to brief senior civilian and military officials, including the judge advocates general from each of the services, a Pentagon official said.

Getting the support of uniformed Pentagon lawyers could prove critical to the fate of the measure. At a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month, each of the judge advocates general said that, like some lawmakers, they preferred a system for trying detainees that relied on the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs court-martial proceedings.

That was at odds with testimony from civilian lawyers from the Departments of Defense and Justice, who had said that they believed the military code was inappropriate for prosecuting terror suspects and recommended that Congress retain the administration’s military commission system. Pentagon officials said they were still open to suggested changes from the military lawyers.

Eric Ruff, the Pentagon spokesman, said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld “is asking that draft legislation be reviewed by everyone from a legal as well as policy perspective, and he would like them to provide feedback on what the effects might be on the ability of our military to carry out its various missions.”

Kate Zernike contributed reporting for this article.

White House Bill Proposes System to Try Detainees, NYT, 26.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/washington/26detain.html?hp&ex=1153972800&en=9426e5f672f2826b&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Senate passes bill making it a crime to take a girl to another state for abortion

Updated 7/25/2006 8:27 PM ET
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bill that would make it a crime to take a pregnant girl across state lines for an abortion without her parents' knowledge passed the Senate Tuesday, but vast differences with the House version stood between the measure and President Bush's desk.

The 65-34 vote gave the Senate's approval to the bill, which would make taking a pregnant girl to another state for the purposes of evading parental notification laws punishable by fines and up to a year in jail.

The girl and her parents would be exempt from prosecution, and the bill contains an exception for abortions performed in this manner that posed a threat to the mother's life.

Struggling to defend their majority this election year, Republican sponsors said the bill supports what a majority of the public believes: that a parent's right to know takes precedence over a young woman's right to have an abortion.

"No parent wants anyone to take their children across state lines or even across the street without their permission," said Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "This is a fundamental right, and the Congress is right to uphold it in law."

Bush applauded the Senate action and urged the House and Senate to resolve their differences and send him a bill he said he would sign. "Transporting minors across state lines to bypass parental consent laws regarding abortion undermines state law and jeopardizes the lives of young women," he said in a statement.

Fourteen Democrats and 51 Republicans voted for the bill. Four Republicans voted against it: Sens. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Susan Collins of Maine, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., was absent.

Bowing to public support for parental notification and the GOP's 55-44-1 majority, Democrats spent the day trying to carve out an exemption for confidants to whom a girl with abusive parents might turn for help. It was rejected in floor negotiations.

Democrats complained that the measure was the latest in a series of bills designed chiefly to energize the GOP's base of conservative voters.

"Congress ought to have higher priorities than turning grandparents into criminals," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

Significant differences exist between the Senate bill and a measure passed by the House last year.

Unlike the Senate bill, the House measure sets out a national parental notification law. It would require a physician who knowingly performs or induces an abortion on a minor who is a resident of another state to provide notice of at least 24 hours to a parent of the minor before ending the pregnancy.

Procedural hurdles also stood in the way. Following the vote, Democrats prevented Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., from appointing Senate negotiators to help bridge the differences with the House version. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., objected to the conferees' appointment on the grounds that the bill had not been considered by a committee and that negotiations were premature.

"I hope this is not a sign that they're going to try to obstruct this bill," Frist said.

Polls suggest there is widespread public backing for the bill, with almost three-quarters of respondents saying a parent has the right to give consent before a child under 18 has an abortion.

States that do not have parental notification or consent laws are Washington, Oregon, New York, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The District of Columbia also does not have such laws.

No one knows how many girls get abortions in this way, or who helps them. But Democrats say the policy would be dangerous to pregnant teens who have abusive or neglectful parents by discouraging other people from helping them.

"We're going to sacrifice a lot of girls' lives," said Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., countered that opponents "want to strip the overwhelming majority of good parents their rightful role and responsibility because of the misbehavior of a few." He pointed out that the judicial bypass provision would help pregnant teens with abusive parents get around the law.

A last-minute deal by Ensign and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., would cut off the ability of men who impregnate their daughters from taking them out of state for abortions and from suing those who help get the procedure in other states.

During floor negotiations with Boxer, Ensign rejected a proposal by Feinstein to protect from prosecution such confidants as grandparents, clergy and others to whom a girl might turn for help.

Another, sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., would have encouraged the federal government to provide money for more sex education. That bill failed earlier in the day, 48-51.

"If we do nothing about teen pregnancy yet pass this punitive bill, then it proves that this (bill) is only a political charade and not a serious effort to combat the problem," Lautenberg said.

Abstinence is the best way to prevent teenage pregnancy, responded Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

"How many people really think it's in the best interest of young people to be sexually active outside of marriage? Does anything positive ever come from that?" Coburn asked.

The bills are S. 403 and H.R. 748.

Senate passes bill making it a crime to take a girl to another state for abortion, UT, 25.7.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-25-interstate-abortion_x.htm

Bush to Meet With Iraqi Prime Minister

July 25, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:36 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush retains confidence in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki despite the failure of the Shiite politician's signature effort to improve security in Iraq's bloody capital, the White House said as Bush prepared to host the new leader.

Yet with the violence in Baghdad continuing to rage, U.S. officials said the U.S. and Iraq were moving thousands of troops into the city from other parts of the country.

Al-Maliki's six-week old plan to enhance security in Baghdad, which Bush praised on his surprise visit to the city on June 13, clearly is not working, and the two leaders probably will discuss a substitute when they meet Tuesday, White House press secretary Tony Snow said.

''I think that's under consideration,'' Snow said.

Al-Maliki was making his first visit to Washington as the first democratically elected prime minister since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The bloodletting in Baghdad and the current fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon were at the top of his agenda with Bush.

Snow answered ''yes'' when asked whether Bush still was confident that al-Maliki could succeed.

Snow did not give details of the new security plan for Baghdad, but other U.S. officials said it entailed bringing more U.S. troops into the capital from outside the city.

A senior Defense Department official said the remainder of a backup force that had been stationed in Kuwait also was heading into Iraq. Some U.S. military police companies were being shifted to Baghdad, involving between 500-1,000 troops, as well as a cavalry squadron and a battalion of field artillery troops, said the official, who requested anonymity because the plans yet to be made public.

In addition, the official said, at least two Iraqi military brigades will be brought into Baghdad. Forces are being shifted to meet changing security demands in different neighborhoods ''to face the enemy where we think he is,'' the official said.

There are generally about 3,500 troops in a brigade, and more than 800 in a battalion. Currently about 30,000 of the 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq are in Baghdad.

Lebanon also was on al-Maliki's mind. In London on Monday, he said he feared the possible broader consequences of the two-week-old Israeli-Hezbollah fighting.

''I am afraid that what's going on in Lebanon will be a great push towards fundamentalism,'' al-Maliki said during a news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The fighting has killed nearly 400, most of them Lebanese civilians.

Al-Maliki also told BBC radio that Iraq would not collapse into civil war.

''There is a sectarian issue, but the political leaders ... are working on putting an end to'' it, al-Maliki said. ''Civil war will not happen to Iraq.'' He confirmed U.N. data showing an average of 100 civilians a day were killed in May and June.

American troops are stepping up operations in the Baghdad area to combat death squads and tamp down the violence threatening the new unity government, a U.S. general said Monday.

U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted 19 operations last week targeting death squads, U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters. All but two were in Baghdad, he said.

''Clearly Baghdad is the center that everybody is fighting for,'' Caldwell said in Baghdad. ''We will do whatever it takes to bring security to Baghdad.''

The Baghdad area recorded an average of 34 major bombings and shootings for the week ending July 13, the U.S. military said. That was up 40 percent from the daily average of 24 registered between June 14 and July 13.

U.S. officials believe control of Baghdad -- the political, cultural, transport and economic hub of the country -- will determine the future of Iraq. But the city's religiously mixed communities have become the focus of sectarian violence.

Iraq's army and police, which are heavily Shiite, have had trouble winning the trust of residents of majority Sunni neighborhoods. Al-Maliki's plans for curfews and other measures have had no lasting effect.

The Bush administration is pinning its hopes for a relatively swift withdrawal of most U.S. forces on the political and military success of the multiethnic government al-Maliki heads. Al-Maliki was the compromise choice to lead the government this spring after months of political infighting that frustrated the Bush administration and sapped political support among Iraqis.

The war is increasingly unpopular in the United States, weighing down the president's poll numbers and causing headaches for the White House as it looks to midterm congressional elections this fall.

At least 2,565 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Far larger numbers of Iraqis have died, including hundreds in tit-for-tat sectarian killings in Baghdad.

Many of the death squads are believed to be associated with either Sunni or Shiite armed groups, targeting members of the rival sect as part of a struggle for power between the country's two major religious communities.

The rise in sectarian violence has shifted attention away from the Sunni-led insurgency most active in the western Anbar province to Baghdad, a city of 6 million people with large communities of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Bush to Meet With Iraqi Prime Minister, NYT, 25.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Iraq.html

Three Wounded Soldiers Take Another Oath

July 25, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, July 24 — President Bush presided over a citizenship ceremony Monday for three foreign-born soldiers wounded in Iraq and renewed his call for Congress to pass legislation overhauling immigration law.

“We are stronger and more dynamic when we welcome new citizens like these,’’ Mr. Bush said at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, adding, “As the nation debates the future of our immigration policies, we must remember the contribution of these good men.’’

More than 33,000 noncitizens serve in the United States military. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mr. Bush signed an executive order making them immediately eligible for citizenship when they serve on active duty.

Now, with the House and the Senate at odds on the president’s immigration proposal, the immigrant troops have become part of a national political debate.

Two weeks ago the Senate Armed Services Committee conducted a hearing on the importance of the military and how immigration law changes might affect its future. The session, in Miami, brought forth emotional testimony from Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who choked up as he talked about the struggles of his Italian immigrant parents.

The Senate session, like Monday’s presidential appearance at Walter Reed, was intended to promote what Mr. Bush calls “comprehensive immigration reform,’’ a bill that would both impose tough border security measures and put most illegal immigrants already in the country on a path to legalization. The House has rejected that approach in favor of a measure addressing border security only.

As in the past, Mr. Bush said in his remarks Monday that the United States “can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time.’’ He said this was “a joyful day’’ for himself and for the three soldiers: Specialist Noe Santos-Dilone, 21, originally from the Dominican Republic and now of Brooklyn, and two natives of Mexico, Specialist Sergio Lopez, 24, of Bolingbrook, Ill., and Pfc. Eduardo Leal-Cardenas, 21, of Los Angeles.

All were seriously wounded — two lost limbs — by homemade bombs in Iraq. Mr. Bush said he had met one of them, Specialist Santos-Dilone, at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in Washington this year.

“He grabbed my hand, and he said, ‘I’m not a citizen of the United States, and I want to be,’ ” the president recalled, adding, “Now here’s a man who knows how to take it directly to the top.’’

Three Wounded Soldiers Take Another Oath, NYT, 25.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/washington/25bush.html

Stem Cell Work Gets States’ Aid After Bush Veto

July 25, 2006
The New York Times
By JODI RUDOREN

CHICAGO, July 24 — President Bush’s veto of legislation to expand federally financed embryonic stem cell research has had the unintended consequence of drawing state money into the contentious field and has highlighted the issue in election campaigns across the country.

Two governors seized the political moment Thursday, the day after the veto, to raise their ante for stem cell research.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican who helped Mr. Bush win a second term but has long disagreed with him on this research, cited the veto as he lent $150 million from the state’s general fund to pay for grants to stem cell scientists. In Illinois, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, a Democrat opposed to most every White House initiative, offered $5 million for similar grants in his state.

Before the announcements, the only money available was $72 million that five states had allocated for the research and $90 million that the National Institutes of Health had provided since 2001 for work on a restricted number of stem cell lines.

Several other governors, including one Republican, M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut, denounced the president’s veto, his first, in a sign of the political potency of the stem cell debate.

Within hours, too, the issue sprang to the forefront of some crucial campaigns, including ones for governor, senator and representative in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri and Tennessee.

In many cases, Republican moderates, mindful of consistent polls showing public support for expanded stem cell research and expecting the promised attacks from Democrats, sought to distinguish their positions from their president’s.

For Mr. Schwarzenegger, who is running for re-election in a state dominated by Democrats, support for stem cell research has helped position him as a centrist, but his Democratic opponent, Phil Angelides, the state treasurer, tried to one-up him by taking credit for the loan.

Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, the lead lobbyist for the bill Mr. Bush vetoed, said, “In terms of actually getting some resources to the scientists, it turns out like it may be a good week.”

“I also think there’s symbolic significance,” Mr. Tipton said. “It sends a strong signal to patients that there are some politicians that care about them and want to see them taken care of.”

Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said of the president, “While he recognizes that states have the legal power to use their own funds for embryonic stem cell research, he hopes researchers and entrepreneurs will focus on developing effective cures,” including those “that don’t involve controversial practices.”

Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee dismissed the initiatives in Illinois and California as a “public relations gimmick” to divert attention from a debate over whether scientists should be allowed to create embryos through cloning.

“It’s regrettable,” Mr. Johnson said, “but it’s really a matter of their trying to focus public attention on an issue that is significant but is not really the front line of this battle.”

In Florida, stem cell research is a rare point of contention between two Republicans vying to succeed the president’s brother Jeb as governor. But when one of them, Attorney General Charlie Crist, announced that he “respectfully” disagreed with the veto, his rival Tom Gallagher, the chief financial officer, accused Mr. Crist of taking “every opportunity to disagree with the governor and the mainstream of the party.”

Meanwhile, Rod Smith, the Florida state senator who is the Democratic candidate for governor, promised, “When I become governor, we are absolutely going to do stem cell research and we are going to fund it in this state.”

In Maryland, Democratic hopefuls in the governor’s race responded to the veto with visits to the homes of quadriplegics and patients with Parkinson’s disease who could benefit from stem cell research, while the Republican incumbent, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., pointed to his support of the research as evidence that he did not “govern from the right or the left but the center, where most of us are.”

In Colorado, Representative Diana DeGette, a Democrat and a sponsor of the vetoed legislation, staged a protest rally on Friday when the president visited her district for a $1,000-a-plate luncheon on behalf of Rick O’Donnell, a Republican who supports his position.

Nowhere is the issue hotter than in Missouri, where voters in November are likely to face a ballot initiative supporting stem cell research, and where Senator Jim Talent, a Republican who is seeking re-election, opposes it. Mr. Talent’s Democratic challenger, Claire McCaskill, the state auditor, highlighted the issue last week when she delivered the Democrats’ radio address and then initiated a conference call with national reporters to spotlight her support.

The moves in California and Illinois continue the patchwork pattern of public financing for stem cell research since 2001, when Mr. Bush announced his policy restricting how federal money could be used in the arena.

More than 100 bills have been considered over the past two years by dozens of state legislatures, with one, South Dakota’s, banning such research altogether and five — in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey — allocating state resources to the effort. Other states, including Indiana, Massachusetts, Virginia and Wisconsin, have taken steps to support stem cell science without directly paying for research, while Arizona, North Carolina and Virginia have formed groups to study their state’s role in the emerging field.

Mr. Schwarzenegger’s announcement on Thursday of the $150 million loan will provide the single largest public pot yet available.

“I think with one stroke, the president energized” the program, said Zach W. Hall, the president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which had an anemic $14 million to spread among 16 training grants before the veto, and which will soon be flush. “It’s not what we would have wanted, but it did have that beneficent side effect.”

For California, the $150 million is half the $300 million per year that would be provided under a decade-long, $3 billion bond issue that 59 percent of voters approved in 2004. Taxpayer groups sued to block the bonds and appealed a verdict in May that favored the state. At the same time, “bond anticipation notes” floated in the interim found little favor in the market. The $150 million loan is intended to fill that shortfall and would be repaid by bond proceeds, presuming the state prevails in court.

“Arnold is supposed to be a Republican, so I don’t understand his thinking here with President Bush. It seems like he’s going against the party line,” said Dana Cody, executive director of the Life Legal Defense Foundation, one of the groups suing the state. “It’s very inconsistent with the governor’s platform, if you will, of ‘we’re tired of being taxed.’ That’s $150 million coming out of the taxpayers’ pocket for something that is questionable at best because of the litigation.”

Asked at a news conference in Sacramento on Friday about the political implications of making such a forceful public move to oppose the president he has previously supported, Mr. Schwarzenegger said, “You don’t have to agree with someone on every issue.”

“It doesn’t matter to me what the president thinks about it, or what any party thinks about it,” the governor added. “I always try to do what’s best for the people of California.”

In Illinois, the $5 million would come out of the administrative budget in the Department of Healthcare and Family Services, and would be added to $10 million in grants awarded in April to hospitals and universities. A five-year, $100 million investment that Mr. Blagojevich pushed has been stalled in the Legislature.

Mr. Blagojevich, who was vacationing in Michigan when the new money was announced via a news release, declined an interview request, through a spokeswoman, Abby Ottenhoff.

“It was after the veto that the governor determined there were no more options,” Ms. Ottenhoff said. “This research is too important to put on hold until there is a new leader in the White House.”

Even with the limitations on federal financing, the overall financing available for stem cell research could be described as fairly robust, given that the research is still at a basic stage and that in addition to state money, philanthropies like the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have made contributions. Moreover, in the private sector, biotech companies like Geron, Advanced Cell Technology and Athersys conduct research on embryonic or adult stem cells.

While stem cell scientists applauded the states’ efforts, they cautioned that such an approach was not ideal.

“In the long term, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have individual states trying to mount efforts which are going to be more piecemeal, less effective and take more time than a federal effort,” said Douglas A. Melton, co-director of the Stem Cell Institute at Harvard University. “I don’t think states should mount their own militias either.”

Dr. Arnold Kriegstein, director of the Institute for Regeneration Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said that the $150 million was “absolutely a boon,” but that “if you’re an investigator in another state, besides Illinois or California, I think you’d be very frustrated right now.”

Candace Coffee, a Los Angeles resident who has suffered partial blindness, paralysis and constant headaches from Devic’s disease, appeared with Governor Schwarzenegger on Friday at his news conference.

“President Bush’s veto stole my hope,” Ms. Coffee said. “But just as quickly as our hope was stolen, it was renewed.”

Stem Cell Work Gets States’ Aid After Bush Veto, NYT, 25.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/us/25stem.html?hp&ex=1153886400&en=0a4ddc283632d4a8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush Spokesman Retracts Stem Cell Comment

July 25, 2006
By THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON, July 24 — President Bush does not equate embryonic stem cell research with murder, the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, said on Monday as he apologized for his earlier assertion that Mr. Bush held that view.

“He would not use that term,” Mr. Snow told reporters, adding, “The president has said that he believes that this is the destruction of human life.”

At issue was a comment Mr. Snow made last Tuesday on Mr. Bush’s decision to veto legislation to expand federally supported studies on stem cells.

“The president believes strongly that for the purpose of research it’s inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder,” Mr. Snow said last Tuesday. “He’s one of them. The simple answer is he thinks murder is wrong.”

The remark created a storm on Capitol Hill, where supporters of stem cell research argued that if Mr. Bush believed destroying embryos was murder, he should prosecute fertility clinics.

On Sunday, Mr. Bush’s chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, struggled to explain the characterization on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“It’s a very complicated, very, very delicate issue,” Mr. Bolten said.

Mr. Snow said Monday that he was sorry to have “created a little trouble for Josh Bolten,” and added, “I will go ahead and apologize for having overstated, I guess, overstated the president’s position.”

Bush Spokesman Retracts Stem Cell Comment, NYT, 25.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/washington/25snow.html

Specter prepping bill to sue Bush

Updated 7/24/2006 10:43 PM ET
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — A powerful Republican committee chairman who has led the fight against President Bush's signing statements said Monday he would have a bill ready by the end of the week allowing Congress to sue him in federal court.

"We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said on the Senate floor.

Specter's announcement came the same day that an American Bar Association task force concluded that by attaching conditions to legislation, the president has sidestepped his constitutional duty to either sign a bill, veto it, or take no action.

Bush has issued at least 750 signing statements during his presidency, reserving the right to revise, interpret or disregard laws on national security and constitutional grounds.

"That non-veto hamstrings Congress because Congress cannot respond to a signing statement," said ABA president Michael Greco. The practice, he added "is harming the separation of powers."

Bush has challenged about 750 statutes passed by Congress, according to numbers compiled by Specter's committee. The ABA estimated Bush has issued signing statements on more than 800 statutes, more than all other presidents combined.

Signing statements have been used by presidents, typically for such purposes as instructing agencies how to execute new laws.

But many of Bush's signing statements serve notice that he believes parts of bills he is signing are unconstitutional or might violate national security.

Still, the White House said signing statements are not intended to allow the administration to ignore the law.

"A great many of those signing statements may have little statements about questions about constitutionality," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "It never says, 'We're not going to enact the law.'"

Specter's announcement intensifies his challenge of the administration's use of executive power on a number of policy matters. Of particular interest to him are two signing statements challenging the provisions of the USA Patriot Act renewal, which he wrote, and legislation banning the use of torture on detainees.

Bush is not without congressional allies on the matter. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a former judge, has said that signing statements are nothing more than expressions of presidential opinion that carry no legal weight because federal courts are unlikely to consider them when deciding cases that challenge the same laws.

Specter prepping bill to sue Bush, UT, 24.7.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-24-lawyers-bush_x.htm

Legal Group Says Bush Undermines Law by Ignoring Select Parts of Bills

July 24, 2006
The New York Times
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, July 23 — The American Bar Association said Sunday that President Bush was flouting the Constitution and undermining the rule of law by claiming the power to disregard selected provisions of bills that he signed.

In a comprehensive report, a bipartisan 11-member panel of the bar association said Mr. Bush had used such “signing statements” far more than his predecessors, raising constitutional objections to more than 800 provisions in more than 100 laws on the ground that they infringed on his prerogatives.

These broad assertions of presidential power amount to a “line-item veto” and improperly deprive Congress of the opportunity to override the veto, the panel said.

In signing a statutory ban on torture and other national security laws, Mr. Bush reserved the right to disregard them.

The bar association panel said the use of signing statements in this way was “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.” From the dawn of the Republic, it said, presidents have generally understood that, in the words of George Washington, a president “must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.”

If the president deems a bill unconstitutional, he can veto it, the panel said, but “signing statements should not be a substitute for a presidential veto.”

The panel’s report adds momentum to a campaign by scholars and members of Congress who want to curtail the use of signing statements as a device to augment presidential power.

At a recent hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the chairman, Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said Mr. Bush seemed to think he could “cherry-pick the provisions he likes and exclude the ones he doesn’t like.” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the committee, said the signing statements were “a diabolical device” to rewrite laws enacted by Congress.

Justice Department officials dismiss such criticism as unjustified. “President Bush’s signing statements are indistinguishable from those issued by past presidents,” said Michelle E. Boardman, a deputy assistant attorney general. “He is exercising a legitimate power in a legitimate way.”

Michael S. Greco, the president of the bar association, who created the study panel, said its report highlighted a “threat to the Constitution and to the rule of law.”

At its annual meeting next month, in Hawaii, the association will consider several policy recommendations, including a proposal for judicial review of signing statements.

The panel said, “Our recommendations are not intended to be, and should not be viewed as, an attack on President Bush.” The panel said it was equally concerned about the precedents being set for future chief executives.

The panel acknowledged that earlier presidents, including Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, had occasionally asserted the right to disregard provisions of a law to which they objected. Under Bill Clinton, the Justice Department told the White House that the president could “decline to execute unconstitutional statutes.”

But the panel said that Mr. Bush had expressed his objections more forcefully, more often and more systematically, “as a strategic weapon” to influence federal agencies and judges.

In his first term, the panel said, Mr. Bush raised 505 constitutional objections to new laws. On 82 occasions, he asserted that he alone could supervise, direct and control the operations of the executive branch, under a doctrine known as the “unitary executive.”

Whenever Congress directs the president to furnish information, Mr. Bush reserves the right to withhold it. When Congress imposes mandates and requirements on the executive branch, the president often says he will read them as advisory or “precatory.”

When Congress tries to define foreign policy — for example, on Russia, Syria, North Korea or Sudan — Mr. Bush objects. Even if he agrees with the policy, he asserts that the Congressional directives “impermissibly interfere with the president’s constitutional authority” to conduct foreign affairs.

Whenever Congress prescribes qualifications for presidential appointees, Mr. Bush complains that this is an intrusion on his power, even if Congress merely requires that the appointee know about the field for which he will be responsible.

When Congress requires outreach or affirmative action for women or members of certain racial or ethnic groups, the president demurs, saying such provisions must be carried out “in a manner consistent with the requirements of equal protection under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”

The panel said Mr. Bush’s signing statements often used the same formulaic language, with “no citation of authority or detailed explanation.” It urged Congress to pass a law requiring the president to “set forth in full the reasons and legal basis” for any signing statement in which he says he can disregard or decline to enforce a statute.

In another recommendation, the panel suggested legislation to provide for judicial review of signing statements. It acknowledged that the Supreme Court had been reluctant to hear cases filed by members of Congress because lawmakers generally did not suffer the type of concrete personal injury needed to create a “case or controversy.” But the panel said that “Congress as an institution or its agents” should have standing to sue when the president announces he will not enforce parts of a law.

The issue has deep historical roots, the panel said, noting that Parliament had condemned King James II for nonenforcement of certain laws in the 17th century. The panel quoted the English Bill of Rights: “The pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of Parliament, is illegal.”

The panel was headed by Neal R. Sonnett, a criminal defense lawyer in Miami. Members include former Representative Mickey Edwards, Republican of Oklahoma; Bruce E. Fein, a Justice Department official in the Reagan administration; Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of Yale Law School; William S. Sessions, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Kathleen M. Sullivan, a former dean of Stanford Law School; and Patricia M. Wald, former chief judge of a federal appeals court.

Legal Group Says Bush Undermines Law by Ignoring Select Parts of Bills, NYT, 24.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/24/washington/24prexy.html?ex=1153972800&en=0cf5d5ef5f2aa260&ei=5087%0A

Bush’s Record: One Veto, Many No’s

July 23, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL STOLBERG
WASHINGTON

OF all the powers of the presidency, the veto is among the most potent.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt rejected or failed to sign 635 bills during his 12 years in office, using his veto power to keep Congress — run by his fellow Democrats — subservient. Harry S. Truman vetoed 250 bills; Dwight D. Eisenhower, 181. Bill Clinton used one of 37 vetoes to reject a law banning a particular type of abortion.

But until last week, when President Bush vetoed a bill to expand federally supported embryonic stem cell research, the incumbent president — a man who has taken an especially aggressive approach to expanding executive authority — left the veto power untouched.

Conventional wisdom holds that Mr. Bush went more than five years without exercising his veto power simply because he did not have to: the Republicans who control Congress gave him everything he wanted.

That is, for the most part, true. But Mr. Bush has also found ways of exercising control over (or circumventing) Congress without using the veto. When Mr. Bush wanted to empower federal authorities to monitor the international communications of suspected terrorists, he did so by issuing a secret executive order, avoiding a possible legislative battle — and the potential veto that might go along with it.

And when Congress last year passed a legislative amendment barring cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees in American custody, Mr. Bush — who had threatened a veto but ultimately backed down — tacked a “signing statement” onto the measure, asserting that he could interpret the amendment as he deemed fit with his constitutional authority as commander in chief.

“President Bush has vetoed things without vetoing them,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Boston University. “He’s kind of found alternative ways in which he can basically say no to Congress without publicly saying no, or publicly having the confrontation.”

That is not to say there have been no confrontations. The threat of a veto can be just as powerful as a veto itself, and the Bush administration says it has issued 141 such threats since taking office. Some involved disputes over federal spending, an area where Mr. Bush has used veto threats to force compromise with fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Yet some in the party, irate over the federal deficit, say they wish Mr. Bush had exercised his veto power sooner.

In 2002, the president came close to vetoing a $190 billion farm bill that expanded subsidies for growers.

“I think he should have vetoed the farm bill, because it was a lousy bill that perpetuated a really bad system,” said Nicholas E. Calio, who was then Mr. Bush’s assistant for legislative affairs. “But some people convinced him that discretion was the better part of valor.”

The veto — Latin for “I forbid” — was not always such an expansive tool of presidential power. Early presidents used it sparingly, only when they believed Congress had violated the Constitution.

George Washington issued two vetoes; John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, none. When James Monroe exercised his first and only veto, rejecting a bill imposing tolls on the Cumberland Road because he believed a constitutional amendment was required, he issued a 25,000-word explanation along with it.

That narrow philosophy of the role of the veto changed with Andrew Jackson. Jackson famously exercised his veto to reject the renewal of the charter of the Second Bank of the United States, turning the veto from a constitutional message into a political one.

“Rather than just arguing that the bank is unconstitutional, Jackson is arguing that the bank is wrong,” said Brian Balogh, a historian at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. “This is a real change in the assertion of presidential power.”

If the veto is a political message, a president’s first veto is always subject to close scrutiny, and that was certainly the case last week with Mr. Bush. With polls showing the vast majority of Americans in favor of embryonic stem cell research, and Republicans deeply divided on the issue, the president has faced intense criticism, including from some in his own party.

As Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who contends that the veto will hurt Republican candidates, said, “It would not be anywhere near as big a deal if he had ever vetoed anything else.”

That is why Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, advises presidents not to follow Mr. Bush’s veto path.

“I tell every president or adviser, take one of the first 10 bills that come to you, pick it at random and veto it,” Mr. Ornstein said. “You want to get it out of the way, otherwise the first veto takes on an enhanced importance, and you’ve got to explain and justify why this one and not all the others.”

Bush’s Record: One Veto, Many No’s, NYT, 24.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/weekinreview/23stolberg.html

Arrested Bush dissenters look to the courts

Posted 7/23/2006 1:24 AM ET
AP
USA Today

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — When school was canceled to accommodate a campaign visit by President Bush, the two 55-year-old teachers reckoned the time was ripe to voice their simmering discontent with the administration's policies.

Christine Nelson showed up at the Cedar Rapids rally with a Kerry-Edwards button pinned on her T-shirt; Alice McCabe clutched a small, paper sign stating "No More War." What could be more American, they thought, than mixing a little dissent with the bunting and buzz of a get-out-the-vote rally headlined by the president?

Their reward: a pair of handcuffs and a strip search at the county jail.

Authorities say they were arrested because they refused to obey reasonable security restrictions, but the women disagree: "Because I had a dissenting opinion, they did what they needed to do to get me out of the way," said Nelson, who teaches history and government at one of this city's middle schools.

"I tell my students all the time about how people came to this country for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, that those rights and others are sacred. And all along I've been thinking to myself, 'not at least during this administration.'"

Their experience is hardly unique.

In the months before the 2004 election, dozens of people across the nation were banished from or arrested at Bush political rallies, some for heckling the president, others simply for holding signs or wearing clothing that expressed opposition to the war and administration policies.

Similar things have happened at official, taxpayer-funded, presidential visits, before and after the election. Some targeted by security have been escorted from events, while others have been arrested and charged with misdemeanors that were later dropped by local prosecutors.

Now, in federal courthouses from Charleston, W.Va., to Denver, federal officials and state and local authorities are being forced to defend themselves against lawsuits challenging the arrests and security policies.

While the circumstances differ, the cases share the same fundamental themes. Generally, they accuse federal officials of developing security measures to identify, segregate, deny entry or expel dissenters.

Jeff Rank and his wife, Nicole, filed a lawsuit after being handcuffed and booted from a July 4, 2004, appearance by the president at the West Virginia Capitol in Charleston. The Ranks, who now live in Corpus Christi, Texas, had free tickets to see the president speak, but contend they were arrested and charged with trespassing for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts.

"It's nothing more than an attempt by the president and his staff to suppress free speech," said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia, which is providing legal services for the Ranks.

"What happened to the Ranks, and so many others across the country, was clearly an incident of viewpoint discrimination. And the lawsuit is an attempt to make the administration accountable for what we believe were illegal actions," Schneider said.

In Cedar Rapids, McCabe and Nelson are suing three unnamed Secret Service agents, the Iowa State Patrol and two county sheriff deputies who took part in their arrest. Nelson and McCabe, who now lives in Memphis, accuse law enforcement of violating their right to free speech, assembly and equal protection.

The two women say they were political novices, inexperienced at protest and unprepared for what happened on Sept. 3, 2004.

Soon after arriving at Noelridge Park, a sprawling urban playground dotted with softball diamonds and a public pool, McCabe and Nelson were approached by Secret Service agents in polo shirts and Bermuda shorts. They were told that the Republicans had rented the park and they would have to move because the sidewalk was now considered private property.

McCabe and Nelson say they complied, but moments later were again told to move, this time across the street. After being told to move a third time, Nelson asked why she was being singled out while so many others nearby, including those holding buckets for campaign donations, were ignored. In response, she says, they were arrested.

They were charged with criminal trespass, but the charges were later dropped.

A spokesman for the Secret Service declined to comment on pending litigation or answer questions on security policy for presidential events. White House spokesman Alex Conant also declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.

But Justice Department lawyers, in documents filed recently in federal court in Cedar Rapids, outline security at the rally and defend the Secret Service agents' actions.

They contend the GOP obtained exclusive rights to use the park and that donation takers were ignored because they were an authorized part of the event. They also say McCabe and Nelson were disobedient, repeatedly refusing agents' orders to move.

"At no time did any political message expressed by the two women play any role in how (the agents) treated them," they wrote. "All individuals ... subject to security restrictions either complied with the security restrictions or were arrested for refusing to comply."

Defenders say stricter policies are a response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and a small price for ensuring the safety of a world leader in an era of heightened suspicion and uncertainty.

But Leslie Weise says law enforcers are violating citizens' rights to voice objections within earshot of the president.

Last year, in Denver, Weise and two friends were evicted from a Bush town hall meeting on Social Security reform.

Weise, a 40-year-old environmental lawyer who is now a stay-at-home mother, opposes the war in Iraq and the administration's energy policies. Like friends Alex Young and Karen Bauer, Weise did some volunteer work for the Kerry campaign.

In the days before Bush's March 2005 town hall meeting, the trio toyed briefly with the notion of actively protesting the visit. But they said they decided against it because they had heard of arrests at Bush appearances in North Dakota and Arizona.

After parking Weise's car, the three, dressed in professional attire and holding tickets obtained from their local congressman, arrived at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. Young cleared security, but Weise and Bauer were briefly detained and told by staff they had been "identified" and would be arrested if they tried "any funny stuff," according to court records.

After finding their seats, they were approached again by staff and removed before Bush began speaking. Days later, Weise learned from Secret Service in Denver that a bumper sticker on her green Saab hatchback — "No More Blood for Oil" — caught the attention of security.

"I had every reason to attend that event, just as anyone else in the room had that day," said Weise. "If we raised security to a higher level just because we had an opinion different from the administration, I think that goes far beyond what is appropriate for this country."

Lawsuits by protesters are not always embraced by the courts. In Pennsylvania, a federal judge dismissed a suit challenging the arrests of six men who stripped down to thongs and formed a pyramid to protest the Abu Ghraib scandal when Bush paid a visit to Lancaster.

The judge ruled the authorities acted with probable cause and are entitled to qualified immunity, shielding them from liability. The ruling is on appeal.

Such efforts to segregate or diminish dissent are hardly new to American politics.

The ACLU has sued several presidents over attempts to silence opposition, as in 1997, when President Clinton tried to prevent protesters from lining his inaugural parade route. And during the tumultuous 1960s, it was not uncommon for hecklers and protesters to be whisked away or managed at a distance from rallies and events.

"In my mind, it all started with Nixon. He was the first presidential candidate to really make an effort to control their image and disrupt public interruption at events," said Cary Covington, a political science professor at the University of Iowa.

But political experts say the 2004 Bush campaign rewrote the playbook for organizing campaign rallies.

At the Republican National Convention in New York City and at other campaign stops, security segregated protesters in designated "free speech zones" set up at a significant distance from each rally. To get into events headlined by Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney, supporters were required to obtain tickets through GOP channels or sign loyalty oaths.

Political experts agree Bush 2004 went to greater lengths than Kerry officials — or any past campaign — to choreograph a seamless, partisan rally free of the embarrassing moments that attract media attention.

Gone are the days of candidates facing down hecklers or reacting to distractions like, the man who donned a chicken costume and pestered George H.W. Bush in 1991 after he balked at Bill Clinton's invitations to debate.

Anthony Corrado, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, said ticket-only events are an effective tool for rewarding legions of volunteers who work the phone banks, raise money and build support.

"In my view, the Republicans did a much better job of linking field volunteers with their schedule and events," Corrado said. "I had never seen it done to the extent it was on 2004 on the Republican side. And my guess is we'll probably see a lot more of it all."

Arrested Bush dissenters look to the courts, UT, 23.7.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-23-bush-protesters_x.htm

In Speech to N.A.A.C.P., Bush Offers Reconciliation

July 21, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, July 20 — In his first speech to the N.A.A.C.P. since taking office in 2001, President Bush acknowledged on Thursday that “many African-Americans distrust my party,” and defended his record on domestic issues, including education, prescription drug coverage and Hurricane Katrina.

“I consider it a tragedy that the party of Abraham Lincoln let go of its historic ties with the African-American community,” said Mr. Bush, whose relations with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have been so strained that, until Thursday, he was the first president since Herbert Hoover to refuse to address the group. “For too long my party wrote off the African-American vote, and many African-Americans wrote off the Republican Party.”

Saying that “history has prevented us from working together when we agree on great goals,” Mr. Bush said the goal should now be to transcend political divisions.

“I want to change the relationship,” he said.

The 33-minute speech was an exercise in bridge-building, intended partly to strengthen ties between Republicans and black voters and partly to reassure moderate white voters with a message of reconciliation. Though Mr. Bush received a standing ovation when he called on the Senate to renew the 1965 Voting Rights Act — it passed unanimously hours later — a somber silence fell over the room as the president discussed his policies on education, jobs and housing, which polls suggest are unpopular with blacks.

The president was booed when he raised the topic of charter schools and was also interrupted by a heckler who shouted about the Middle East. Mr. Bush ignored the outburst, forging ahead with his speech, though the ruckus when the man was ejected briefly drowned out him out.

Mr. Bush repeatedly referred to the group as the N-A-A-C-P, attracting some notice from those who use the more traditional pronunciation of N-double-A-C-P.

Yet Mr. Bush did get some laughs. He opened the speech with a well-received ice-breaker, referring to Bruce S. Gordon, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., whose overtures to Mr. Bush ended the president’s no-show status. In December, after Mr. Gordon met several times with Mr. Bush in the Oval Office, the N.A.A.C.P. extended its customary speaking invitation to Mr. Bush, and he accepted.

“Bruce is a polite guy,” Mr. Bush told the crowd after Mr. Gordon introduced him. “I thought what he was going to say is, ‘It’s about time you showed up.’ ”

Mr. Gordon later gave the speech a grade of B. Others were not so generous.

Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, said Mr. Bush had “scored when he said he looked forward to the Senate approving the Voting Rights Act.” But Mr. Lewis said it would be difficult for blacks to overcome their anger over the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, whose devastation disproportionately affected them.

“People cannot forget Katrina,” Mr. Lewis said. “It’s going to take some time.”

Another civil rights leader, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, said he spoke to Mr. Bush backstage after the speech and urged him to begin "a meaningful dialogue’’ with a broader range of black organizations.

“He said, ‘Well, talk with Karl Rove,’ ’’ Mr. Jackson said, referring to Mr. Bush’s chief political adviser.

Mr. Bush received 11 percent of the black vote in 2004, and his speech came against the backdrop of concerted efforts by Republicans, notably Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, to court black voters. But Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, dismissed the suggestion that Mr. Bush was engaging in partisan politics.

“The president has been walking the walk,” Mr. Snow said, adding, “This was not an attempt to curry votes for the Republican Party.”

Nonetheless, the courtship could be especially important this November, when Republicans are fielding black candidates for governor in Ohio and Pennsylvania and for the Senate in Maryland.

Despite Mr. Mehlman’s earlier efforts, which included a 2004 apology for what he described then as the racially polarized politics of some in his party, tensions between the White House and the N.A.A.C.P. persisted until Mr. Gordon, a former telecommunications executive, succeeded Kweisi Mfume as president in June 2005.

At that time, the organization, which must remain nonpartisan to keep its tax-exempt status, was facing an Internal Revenue Service inquiry after its chairman, Julian Bond, issued a harsh critique of the Bush administration. So far, no action has been taken, a spokesman for the group said.

Mr. Bond, who stood on the dais with Mr. Bush Thursday, once likened the president’s supporters to “the Taliban wing of American politics.” At the height of the tensions, the president said his relationship with the N.A.A.C.P. was “basically nonexistent.”

Time and again throughout his speech on Thursday, Mr. Bush returned to the theme of moving beyond disagreements toward reconciliation. “We’ll work together, and as we do so, you must understand I understand that racism still lingers in America,” the president said.

But while many in the audience gave him credit for simply showing up, some were skeptical. “He waited until the 11th hour of his presidency to come to us with all of his great plans of working together,” said Kathy Sykes, secretary of the N.A.A.C.P. chapter in Jackson, Miss., adding, “We recognize rhetoric when we see it.”

Promoting what he views as his accomplishments, Mr. Bush said his administration had committed more than $110 billion to help hurricane victims on the Gulf Coast and increased financing for historically black universities by 30 percent. He also said the federal government paid more than 95 percent of the cost of prescription drugs for the nation’s poorest Medicare patients.

“Look, I understand that we had a political disagreement on the bill,” Mr. Bush said, referring to legislation that provided the drug benefit, adding, “The day is over of arguing about the bill.”

Mr. Bush also laced his speech with repeated personal references to prominent blacks. As he reminded his audience of the brief visit he paid recently to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, he praised “the gentle wisdom” of his tour guide, Dr. Benjamin Hooks, the former N.A.A.C.P. executive director, who was seated in the audience.

“It’s good to see you again, sir,” Mr. Bush said.

When he spoke about home ownership, Mr. Bush invoked Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, and the Rev. Anthony T. Evans, a prominent African-American pastor in Dallas, calling both men his friends. When he spoke about the Voting Rights Act, he gave a nod to the secretary of state, saying, “Condi Rice understands what this has meant.”

One topic the president did not touch was the war in Iraq, an omission that Mr. Lewis said left him surprised and disappointed, given that many blacks serve in the military. The White House press secretary, Mr. Snow, said later that Mr. Bush “had a pretty full plate just walking through domestic policy.”

In Speech to N.A.A.C.P., Bush Offers Reconciliation, NYT, 21.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/21/washington/21bush.html

First Bush Veto Maintains Limits on Stem Cell Use

July 20, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, July 19 — President Bush on Wednesday rejected legislation to expand federally supported embryonic stem cell research, exercising his first veto while putting himself at odds with many members of his own party and what polls say is a majority of the public.

By defying the Republican-controlled Congress, which had sent him legislation that would have overturned research restrictions he imposed five years ago, Mr. Bush re-inserted himself forcefully into a moral, scientific and political debate in which Republicans are increasingly finding common ground with Democrats.

The president laid out his reasoning in a written message to the House of Representatives, then announced his decision in the East Room of the White House, surrounded by babies born through in vitro fertilization using so-called “adopted embryos.’’

As the infants gurgled and fidgeted in their parents’ arms, Mr. Bush said the bill violated his principles on the sanctity of human life by encouraging the destruction of embryos left over from fertilization procedures. Proponents of the measure have argued that such embryos would be destroyed anyway.

“I felt like crossing this line would be a mistake, and once crossed we would find it almost impossible to turn back,’’ Mr. Bush said. “Crossing the line would needlessly encourage a conflict between science and ethics that can only do damage to both, and to our nation as a whole.’’

Until Wednesday, Mr. Bush was among just seven presidents — all of whom served before 1881 — who had never vetoed a piece of legislation. Four served only partial terms; the other three were John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams.

Within hours of the East Room ceremony, the House hurriedly took up a measure to override the veto, but the vote, 235 to 193, fell 51 short of the two-thirds majority required. Fifty-one Republicans, 183 Democrats and 1 independent voted to override, while 4 Democrats joined 179 Republicans in voting to keep the veto intact.

The vote put an end to the bill’s prospects for the year, but not to the stem cell debate, which has escalated into a major issue on Capitol Hill, with Democrats and Republicans alike predicting electoral repercussions in November.

“This is not some wedge issue; this is the soul of America,’’ said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, who sponsored the bill Mr. Bush vetoed. “And this is a colossal mistake on the part of the president.’’

But beyond the principles involved, the White House had clearly calculated that it would have been more of a political mistake to sign the bill. Social conservatives, the heart of Mr. Bush’s base, had demanded the president keep his promise to veto any measure that altered the careful compromise he articulated in 2001. With Mr. Bush’s approval ratings hovering at about 40 percent, conservatives are more critical than ever to the president, and he cannot afford to arouse their ire.

“This is a profound moral issue,’’ said Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, after the White House ceremony. “The issue is whether or not it is morally right to use the taxpayer dollars of millions of pro-life Americans who find this research morally objectionable.’’

Yet the ground is shifting in the debate, and even Mr. Pence conceded that opponents of the research were ‘’losing the argument with the American people.’’ Republicans, even those like Mr. Bush who oppose abortion, are wrestling with whether embryos that are no bigger than a typographical period but regarded by some as human beings should be destroyed to save lives.

The issue reflects the complex nature of the politics of abortion and medical research in the United States today and is in some ways the flip side of the Democrats’ quandary over abortion. Just as medical advances like ultrasound imaging have spurred greater opposition to abortion, leading some Democrats to recalibrate their views, the promise of embryonic stem cell research has pushed some Republicans toward positions in which black-and-white beliefs about the sanctity of life have given way to more nuanced and ethically complex stances.

As baby boomers have aged, demanding the best medical treatments for themselves and their elderly parents, the public clamor for stem cell research has grown more intense. According to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan polling organization that tracks the issue, roughly two-thirds of all Democrats and independents favor embryonic stem cell research, while nearly half of all Republicans do.

That leaves Mr. Bush — who has not used his veto partly because Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress for nearly all of his presidency — at odds with many leaders of his own party. They include staunch abortion opponents like Senators Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee. Already, some Republicans who opposed Mr. Bush on the stem cell issue are looking to the presidential elections of 2008.

“When there’s another election, another chapter of democracy opens,’’ Mr. Smith said in an interview. “Most of the candidates who have a shot at winning are in favor of stem cell research. This represents a delay en route, but I know where we’re going, and it’s where the American people want to go.’’

As the White House prepared for the East Room ceremony, advocates for patients who support stem cell research flooded the switchboard with calls urging Mr. Bush not to veto the bill.

“We were really hoping, because so many of the American people supported this research, that the president would take this opportunity to take a really big deep breath and reconsider,” said Kathy Lewis, president of the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, named for the late actor who was an outspoken advocate for the science.

In a sense, the issue has come full circle for Mr. Bush. The president devoted his first prime-time television address to the issue, becoming the first president to open the door to federal financing for the science.

Under the policy, which Mr. Bush announced on Aug. 9, 2001, the federal government pays for studies on stem cell colonies, or lines, created before that date, so that the government does not encourage the destruction of additional embryos. Mr. Bush said Wednesday that his administration had made more than $90 million available for such work.

The bill Mr. Bush vetoed would have allowed taxpayer-financed research on lines derived from embryos slated for destruction by fertility clinics. Mr. Bush also signed a “fetal farming” measure, barring trafficking in embryos and fetuses with the intent of harvesting body parts.

“These boys and girls are not spare parts,” the president said in a speech that was interrupted repeatedly by hoots of applause, and twice by standing ovations. “They remind us of what is lost when embryos are destroyed in the name of research.’’

In one respect, the veto plays to Mr. Bush’s personal strengths, reinforcing the perception that he is someone who makes up his mind and sticks to it, ignoring the polls. But Democrats are determined to make the veto a central theme of their fall election campaigns, hooking it in with another hugely divisive medical issue — the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case — to argue that Republicans are beholden to the religious right.

Within hours of the veto, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, sent out a fund-raising letter asserting that Mr. Bush had decided that curing diseases “was not as important as catering to his right-wing base.” Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, put it this way: “This will be remembered as a Luddite moment in American history.”

Even Republicans concede the president’s action could hurt their candidates, particularly moderates like Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, who face tough re-election contests.

“It paints us in a corner as more and more single issue, and more and more unreasonable,” said Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist. “This is the line that the president certainly doesn’t want Republicans to cross, but I think an awful lot of Republicans say this goes across common sense, this research has the potential of saving my father, my mother, or a friend, or curing cancer.”

First Bush Veto Maintains Limits on Stem Cell Use, NYT, 20.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/washington/20bush.html?hp&ex=1153454400&en=5bd39aa1c9072bd1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Text: Bush’s Veto Message

July 19, 2006
The New York Times

Following is President Bush's veto message to the House of Representatives:

I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 810, the "Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005."

Like all Americans, I believe our Nation must vigorously pursue the tremendous possibilities that science offers to cure disease and improve the lives of millions. Yet, as science brings us ever closer to unlocking the secrets of human biology, it also offers temptations to manipulate human life and violate human dignity. Our conscience and history as a Nation demand that we resist this temptation. With the right scientific techniques and the right policies, we can achieve scientific progress while living up to our ethical responsibilities.

In 2001, I set forth a new policy on stem cell research that struck a balance between the needs of science and the demands of conscience. When I took office, there was no Federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research. Under the policy I announced 5 years ago, my Administration became the first to make Federal funds available for this research, but only on embryonic stem cell lines derived from embryos that had already been destroyed. My Administration has made available more than $90 million for research of these lines. This policy has allowed important research to go forward and has allowed America to continue to lead the world in embryonic stem cell research without encouraging the further destruction of living human embryos.

H.R. 810 would overturn my Administration's balanced policy on embryonic stem cell research. If this bill were to become law, American taxpayers for the first time in our history would be compelled to fund the deliberate destruction of human embryos. Crossing this line would be a grave mistake and would needlessly encourage a conflict between science and ethics that can only do damage to both and harm our Nation as a whole.

Advances in research show that stem cell science can progress in an ethical way. Since I announced my policy in 2001, my Administration has expanded funding of research into stem cells that can be drawn from children, adults, and the blood in umbilical cords with no harm to the donor, and these stem cells are currently being used in medical treatments. Science also offers the hope that we may one day enjoy the potential benefits of embryonic stem cells without destroying human life. Researchers are investigating new techniques that might allow doctors and scientists to produce stem cells just as versatile as those derived from human embryos without harming life. We must continue to explore these hopeful alternatives, so we can advance the cause of scientific research while staying true to the ideals of a decent and humane society.

I hold to the principle that we can harness the promise of technology without becoming slaves to technology and ensure that science serves the cause of humanity. If we are to find the right ways to advance ethical medical research, we must also be willing when necessary to reject the wrong ways. For that reason, I must veto this bill.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 19, 2006.

Text: Bush’s Veto Message, NYT, 20.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/washington/text-stem.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Bush Blocked Ethics Inquiry, Gonzales Says

July 19, 2006
The New York Times
By NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON, July 17 — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday that President Bush had personally decided to block the Justice Department ethics unit from examining the role played by government lawyers in approving the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program.

Mr. Gonzales made the assertion in response to questioning from Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the committee. Mr. Specter said the Office of Professional Responsibility at the Justice Department had to call off an investigation into the conduct of department lawyers who evaluated the surveillance program because the unit was denied clearance to review classified documents.

“Why wasn’t O.P.R. given clearance as so many other lawyers in the Department of Justice were given clearance?” Mr. Specter asked.

Mr. Gonzales replied, “The president of the United States makes decisions about who is ultimately given access,” and he added that the president “makes the decision because this is such an important program.”

The head of the Office of Professional Responsibility, H. Marshall Jarrett, began the investigation in response to requests from members of Congress in January. But in May, Mr. Jarrett wrote to Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, a New York Democrat who joined in the request, saying that he could not proceed because he and his colleagues had been denied security clearances to review the history of the secret surveillance program.

The shutting down of Mr. Jarrett’s efforts had been previously reported, but Mr. Gonzales’s comments Tuesday during a hearing on oversight of the Justice Department were the first acknowledgment of Mr. Bush’s direct role.

Administration officials said Mr. Bush made the decision because he believed there were other avenues of oversight, including investigations by the inspectors general of the Justice Department and the National Security Agency as well as the Intelligence Committees of both houses.

“We had to draw the line somewhere,” said a senior Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of lack of authorization to comment. “There was already lots of oversight on this program, and we had to consider the interest” in protecting the program’s secrecy by limiting the number of people who knew its details.

The official also asserted that while some lawyers might have questioned the legality of the surveillance program, there was never an issue of legal ethics, which is the purview of the Office of Professional Responsibility.

“We were trying to limit the scope of people who had access to all the details of the program,’’ the official said, “and a judgment was made that it was not worth reading these additional people into it.”

Mr. Hinchey disagreed, saying that he had been told by officials from the office of the inspector general in the Justice Department that the ethics unit was the appropriate office to investigate how lawyers behaved in evaluating the program and whether they were manipulated.

Paul Martin, the deputy inspector general, said Tuesday that his office was “conducting preliminary inquiries into the F.B.I.’s role and use of information” from the surveillance program.

Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who had also sought an O.P.R. investigation of the surveillance program, said Tuesday that she was shocked that Mr. Bush had blocked the clearances of lawyers from that office.

“The president’s latest action shows that he is willing to be personally involved in the cover-up of suspected illegal activity,” Ms. Lofgren said.

Mr. Gonzales also told the committee that Congress should consider giving explicit approval to the kind of military commissions that the Supreme Court struck down last month.

He also urged Congress to enact a law that would strip federal courts of the ability to consider hundreds of challenges brought by terror suspects being held at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In its ruling last month, the Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration’s argument that the law as currently written applied to the hundreds of pending cases.

Mr. Gonzales also seemed to back slightly away from his suggestions that the Justice Department might consider prosecuting reporters who write about classified programs.

Mr. Specter asked him about comments in a May 21 television interview in which the attorney general said he had been trying to determine whether to prosecute someone from The New York Times for its disclosures about the eavesdropping program.

“Are you considering the prosecution of the author of that article?” Mr. Specter asked.

Mr. Gonzales replied that with respect to The Times and other publications, “our longstanding practice, and it remains so today, is that we pursue the leaker.”

He added that the administration “hopes to work with responsible journalists and persuade them not to publish” such articles.

Bush Blocked Ethics Inquiry, Gonzales Says, NYT, 19.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/washington/19gonzales.html?hp&ex=1153368000&en=0949f4221a5669ba&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Senate Approves a Stem-Cell Bill; Veto Is Expected

July 19, 2006
The New York Times
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, July 18 — Following two days of often personal debate, the Senate defied a veto threat by President Bush on Tuesday and approved legislation that would expand federal support of medical research using embryonic stem cells.

White House officials said Mr. Bush planned to veto the measure as early as Wednesday, ignoring the substantial support it won from Senate Republicans, including the majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee. It would be the first veto of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

Although the House passed the measure last year, the bill’s supporters do not appear to have the votes to override the veto, meaning the initiative stands almost no chance of making it into law this year.

But the Senate vote was an important moment in the evolving politics of stem cell research, which supporters say could hold the key to breakthroughs in dealing with a variety of medical conditions. Opponents say the bill would encourage the destruction of human embryos and lead the world down a dangerous ethical path. The vote was 63 to 37, with 19 Republicans joining all but one Democrat in support.

Mr. Bush has stood by his decision, announced in 2001, to allow the federal government to pay for research on a limited number of existing embryonic stem cell colonies, or lines.

The measure passed Tuesday could, if it became law, greatly expand the number of lines eligible for federal research financing by eliminating the specific restriction imposed by Mr. Bush five years ago. That restriction limited federal research money to lines created before Aug. 9, 2001. Mr. Bush’s restriction was intended to allow some federally financed research while not encouraging further destruction of embryos.

The issue has deeply divided Republicans, many of whom support expanded research on medical or political grounds or both. Backers of the bill pleaded publicly with Mr. Bush on Tuesday to reconsider his decision and allow the federal government to invest more substantially in research on stem cells derived from human embryos that would otherwise be discarded. They said the potential benefits of the research provided needed hope to Americans suffering from a variety of debilitating conditions.

“I can only say, Mr. President, don’t make the first veto you have ever made the veto which dashes these hopes,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California.

Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon and a member of the politically prominent Udall family, recalled the toll that Parkinson’s disease took on three members of his family, including a cousin, the late Representative Morris K. Udall.

“I appeal to my friend, President Bush, in the name of my Udall ancestry to please do not veto this bill,” Mr. Smith said. “To watch people die of such a malady is to instill in one’s heart a desire to err on the side of health, hope and healing, to find a cure if a cure can be found.”

Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said Tuesday that the president would veto the measure because of his belief that federal money should not be spent on research conducted on stem cells derived from human embryos. Mr. Snow said Mr. Bush considered that murder.

“The president is not going to get on the slippery slope of taking something that is living and making it dead for the purpose of research,” he said.

Mr. Snow said the president did intend to sign two other measures passed unanimously by the Senate on Tuesday — one that promotes efforts to obtain stem cells from sources other than embryos and a second that prohibits soliciting or receiving tissue from pregnancies initiated to provide material for research. But the House later threw a wrinkle into those plans when it failed to pass the measure encouraging the development of research on non-embryonic stem cells, leaving its fate in question for now. Democrats said the two secondary measures were a distraction intended to provide political cover to Republicans opposed to the expanded research on embryonic stem cells.

The bipartisan push for Mr. Bush to reconsider his veto threat was joined Tuesday by other prominent Republicans, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, who wrote to the president and urged him not to make his first veto “one that turns America backwards on the path of scientific progress.” Nancy Reagan, the former first lady, who was instrumental in lobbying for a Senate vote on the issue, issued a statement that did not address Mr. Bush directly but said, “Time is short, and life is precious, and I hope this promising research can now move forward.”

Opponents of the legislation said that medical science was already moving beyond the need to use embryonic stem cells and that they could not accept the idea of destroying a potential human life in exchange for potential medical advances.

“Ethical means that we don’t sacrifice life in order to do research to find out more,” said Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, an author of the measure encouraging an emphasis on alternative sources of stem cells.

Backers of the legislation said the embryos to be used would come from excess donations for in vitro fertilizations and would be destroyed if not made eligible for research purposes. They said federal dollars would not pay for the process of destroying the embryos to obtain the stem cells, but that the money and availability of new research material would stimulate medical advances. Senator Orrin G. Hatch, a Utah Republican who backed the measure, estimated the policy change could result in as many as 4,000 new stem cell lines becoming available for research through the National Institutes of Health.

“The current policy is eroding our national advantage on stem cell research,” said Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. “We’re tying our scientists’ hands. We’re holding back our doctors.”

Members of both parties predicted the issue would resonate in this year’s Congressional elections because of widespread public support for the added research.

“The American people are watching, and they will not take kindly to seeing their last flicker of hope being extinguished,” said Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat seeking election to a full term after being appointed to office.

Despite nearly 150 veto threats, Mr. Bush has not sent a single piece of legislation back to Capitol Hill, where his Republican allies control both the House and Senate and have shied from such confrontations.

House members were so rusty with how to handle a veto override that Representative John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio and the majority leader, was temporarily stumped Tuesday when pressed by reporters on what the exact procedure would be. The last measure subject to an override was a water projects bill rejected by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

Mr. Boehner was clear, however, that Republicans were eager to quickly dispose of the politically charged issue. “The sooner the House speaks to the issue,” he said, “the better.”

Senate Approves a Stem-Cell Bill; Veto Is Expected, NYT, 19.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/19/washington/19stem.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Senate takes up stem cell bill; Bush vows veto

Mon Jul 17, 2006 5:11 PM ET
Reuters
By Joanne Kenen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With President George W. Bush threatening his first veto, the Senate opened debate on Monday on a bill to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research beyond the narrow limits set by the president in 2001.

Advocates of expanded federally funded research, including Nancy Reagan, the widow of former President Ronald Reagan who had Alzheimer's disease, say the science holds enormous potential for new cures and treatments for a host of diseases, including diabetes, Parkinson's and spinal-cord injury.

Yet the research is politically volatile and ethically sensitive because extracting the cells involves the destruction of a human embryo.

Bush, who is against abortion, has vowed to veto the bill, possibly as soon as on Wednesday, a day after the Senate is expected to pass it. The White House repeated on Monday that Bush opposes using "federal taxpayer dollars to support and encourage the destruction of human life for research."

Advocates say the new legislation would allow the expanded research only on leftover embryos from fertility clinics that would otherwise be destroyed.

"It really is the right to life," California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein said of the scientific promise.

Bush in 2001 allowed federally funded research on 78 stem cell lines already in existence. But only about 20 proved useful for researchers, who complain they need more lines and that those available are unsuitable for use in human beings.

Under an unusual agreement struck by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican who broke with Bush on stem cells, the Senate took up a package of three-linked bills, all of which are expected to get the 60 votes required for passage.

MORALLY CHALLENGING

The embryonic bill passed the House but short of the needed two-thirds vote to override a veto.

Frist, a potential 2008 presidential contender, opposes abortion, but said the White House policy "unduly restricts" the cells available to researchers.

"I believe that embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research should be federally funded within a carefully regulated, fully transparent, fully accountable framework, ensuring the highest level of respect for the moral significance of the human embryo," Frist said.

Bush backs the other two bills, which the House plans to take up later this week.

One would ban "fetus farming," prohibiting anyone from implanting an embryo in the womb of a woman or animal for the purpose of extracting cells or tissue.

The other promotes alternative forms of stem cell research that do not entail destroying an embryo. Most senators say they will vote for the bill, but some Democrats say legislation is designed to give political cover for conservative Republicans because that research is already taking place.

Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, which is pushing for embryonic stem cell research, said backing only the alternative bill "is an indefensible position for stalling progress in treating and curing diseases."

Conservative Republicans who back the alternative research and oppose the House-passed bill say advocates of the embryonic stem cell research are overstating its promise and ignoring the value of other research they say is less morally challenging.

"Embryonic stem cell research, which has not delivered any peer-reviewed treatments or human clinical trials, is immoral and unnecessary because of the much greater promise and track record of adult and cord blood stem cell research," Kansas Republican Sam Brownback said.

Stem cell experts say they want to pursue all avenues of research, and not favor one over the other.

Senate takes up stem cell bill; Bush vows veto, R, 17.7.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-07-17T211026Z_01_N14455640_RTRUKOC_0_US-CONGRESS-STEMCELLS.xml

Amid Pomp, Bush Is Pumped and Chat Is Candid

July 17, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

STRELNA, Russia, July 17 — For anyone who has ever wondered what President Bush sounds like when the microphones are off, the answer, at least at lunchtime on Monday, was blunt to the point of profane, laced with a wise-guy edge and, like anyone forced to make small talk, willing to fall back on safe topics like air travel.

Mr. Bush was munching on a roll during lunch with his fellow world leaders on the final day of the Group of 8 summit meeting here as his unguarded comments were picked up by an open microphone and overheard by gleeful journalists.

Whether the cause was poor staff work by the Russian hosts or something more calculated, the result was more interesting and revealing than the catalog of official statements the leaders had issued during their talks here in this St. Petersburg suburb, at the Konstantinovsky Palace.

Using an vulgarity, Mr. Bush said at one point that Syria should get Hezbollah to stop its attacks on Israel, describing American policy in the kind of unfettered language that he acknowledged only weeks ago sometimes gets him in trouble when he uses it publicly.

Discussing diplomatic efforts in the Middle East, Mr. Bush said the approach favored by Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, “seems odd.” Referring to President Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Mr. Bush said he “felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with Assad, make something happen.”

The microphone caught him discussing global trade talks, his impatience with long speeches, even his preference for Diet Coke. For four minutes, the world was given an unscripted look at how he does business with his international counterparts, especially Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who, apparently alert to the peril, brought the episode to a conclusion by flipping the microphone off.

But not before Mr. Bush disclosed that he would send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East and needled Mr. Blair about a recent birthday gift.

“No, I’m just going to make it up,” Mr. Bush said in one aside, presumably to an aide, apparently referring to remarks he would be making to the other leaders. “I’m not going to talk too damn long like the rest of them. Some of these guys talk too long.”

Ms. Rice was subject to a similar unwitting public airing of her views last month in Moscow, when someone forgot to turn off a microphone while she was having lunch with Sergey V. Lavrov, the foreign minister.

Mr. Bush’s unscripted side has been put on public display before, as when his unflattering description of a reporter for The New York Times was picked up by a microphone as he chatted with Dick Cheney at one of their campaign events in 2000.

But this one caught him in interactions with other leaders, mixing the banal with matters of war and peace. Those at the lunch were the leaders of the Group of 8 industrial nations — France, Germany, Japan, the United States, Russia, Britain, Italy and Canada — as well as those of China, India and Brazil, among others.

[Asked about the incident later aboard Air Force One as Mr. Bush flew home, Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said the president’s “reaction first was, ‘What did it say?’ So we showed him the transcript, then he rolled his eyes and laughed.” Mr. Snow said Mr. Bush “likes Kofi Annan and he is not only happy to work with him, but has been supportive from the very start of the U.N. mission to the region.’’]

In the taped conversation Mr. Bush, clearly eager to get home to the White House after six days in Europe, is heard saying, apparently to a counterpart, possibly President Hu Jintao of China, who was sitting next to him, “Good job, gotta keep this thing moving — I gotta leave at 2:15 — you’ll want me out of town so to free up your security forces.” The voice that appears to be that of Mr. Hu agrees, “Ya,” and he laughs along with Mr. Bush’s trademark giggle.

But Mr. Bush sighs, and explains, “Gotta go home, got something to do.” Apparently betraying some confusion about the geography of Europe and Asia, he asks: “Where you going? Home? This is your neighborhood; it won’t take you long to get home.”

The counterpart, perhaps Mr. Hu, cannot be heard as he responds, but Mr. Bush exclaims, “You get home in 8 hours? Me too! Russia is a big country, and you’re a big country.”

A moment later, Mr. Bush can be heard saying to a waiter, “No, not Coke, Diet Coke.”

But it is around then that Mr. Blair walks by, and the president yells out, “Yeah, Blair, what are you doing? Leaving?”

It is the beginning of a conversation contrasting Mr. Blair’s soft-spoken style to Mr. Bush’s more forceful one, with Mr. Bush often interrupting him.

After Mr. Blair raises the issues of global trade talks, Mr. Bush abruptly changes the subject to a gift he got from the prime minister for his recent 60th birthday. “Thanks for the sweater, awfully thoughtful of you,” Mr. Bush says, then jokes, “I know you picked it out yourself.”

Mr. Blair, laughing, says, “Oh, absolutely, absolutely.”

Mr. Bush again abruptly changes the subject to the most serious matter of the meetings here, the Middle East. “What about Kofi?” he said, referring to Mr. Annan. “That seems odd.”

Mr. Bush complained about Mr. Annan’s approach to the crisis, and for holding a view of many leaders here that Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah should cease fire and hash out their differences. The Americans have said that Israel would probably only stand down if Hamas and Hezbollah returned the soldiers they have captured and ceased their shelling of Israeli towns.

“I don’t like the sequence of it,” Mr. Bush said. “His attitude is basically, cease-fire and everything else happens.”

Amid Pomp, Bush Is Pumped and Chat Is Candid, NYT, 18.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/world/middleeast/17cnd-prexy.html?ex=1153368000&en=d422924b6b63f4d4&ei=5087%0A

G.O.P. Senator Resisting Bush Over Detainees

July 18, 2006
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, July 17 — Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina often plays the contrarian, the conservative Republican willing to poke a stick in the eye of the White House.

Now Mr. Graham is playing an even higher-profile variant of that role, as the Senate’s foremost expert on military law in the midst of the emotional debate over what rights to provide to terror suspects.

A former military lawyer who is also a reserve judge on the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, his influence is shaping up to be pivotal in forming the Congressional response to the Supreme Court ruling striking down the White House’s plan for bringing terror detainees to trial.

Mr. Graham advocates using the existing court-martial system as the basis for trying suspects, a position that has drawn fire from many other Republicans. They say it could cripple the government’s ability to protect the nation by giving detainees too many rights and making it harder to use highly classified intelligence against them.

But drawing on his own experience and a deep personal loyalty to the military justice system, Mr. Graham is working across party lines to try to assemble a consensus for his approach, saying it is sound legally and in terms of national security.

His views are shaped not only by his understanding of the law, but also by his respect for an institution he credits with changing his life, by shaping his career and allowing him to support his 13-year-old sister after his parents died when he was in college. His belief in the integrity of the military code has repeatedly led him to resist the White House when it comes to defining the treatment of people accused of being terrorists.

Last year, against the wishes of the Bush administration, he was one of the key forces in helping pass a ban on torture. Last week, he raised questions about the judicial nomination of William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon general counsel who helped write a memorandum that narrowly defined torture only as treatment that causes pain similar to death or major organ failure.

While some other Republicans argue that terrorists do not deserve legal or human rights, Mr. Graham has insisted that only a system grounded in the fundamental rights of the military code and the Geneva conventions will affirm the reputation of the United States abroad and protect American troops when they are captured by enemies.

“What I’m trying to do with my time in the Senate during this whole debate we’re having is to remind the Senate that the rules we set up speak more about us than it does the enemy,” Mr. Graham said in an interview. “The enemy has no rules. They don’t give people trials, they summarily execute them and they’re brutal, inhuman creatures. But when we capture one of them, what we do is about us, not about them.

“Do they deserve, the bad ones, all the rights that are afforded? No. But are we required to do it because of what we believe? Yes.”

Administration lawyers have argued for Congress simply to ratify the tribunals that the Supreme Court ruled that the president could not set up on his own.

Mr. Graham has fought back in his hyperkinetic, folksy way. Challenging the lawyers this week, he bounced in his chair, rolled his eyes, shook his head and raised his voice, warning at one point that if they pushed the president’s approach, “It’s going to be a long hot summer.”

“I’m a big fan of the Geneva Conventions,” he declared.

At a hearing last week, Mr. Graham backed up Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, as she prodded military lawyers to refute the claim of some Republicans that providing legal rights to terror suspects was tantamount to setting them free.

“Isn’t it correct,” Mr. Graham asked the panel, after making a polite interruption, “that you could be acquitted in a military commission and still be held as an enemy combatant — even if you’re acquitted?”

Nodding at Mrs. Clinton, he explained: “It goes to your point. You’re absolutely right.”

In an interview later, Mrs. Clinton called Mr. Graham’s position “a perfect example of when someone’s experience can be used to inform an issue.”

“He comes to it from his own experience and deeply held convictions about the importance of our military code of justice,” she said, “and an understanding as to the damage that has been done to our standing in general and the potential dangers in particular to our men and women in uniform.”

Mrs. Clinton said, “There isn’t anyone else in the Congress who can speak with such experience and authority.”

Mr. Graham, who turned 51 last week, grew up in the rooms behind the bar and liquor store his parents owned in Central, S.C., a textile town . The first in his family to go to college, he joined R.O.T.C. and wanted to fly but was disqualified by what he calls “lack of math ability and bad hearing.”

When his mother died when he was 21, the Air Force allowed him to continue his education instead of going into the service, so he could stay home. When his father died 15 months later, the service said he could attend law school in South Carolina so he could stay with his sister, and when he finished, the service posted him as a defense counsel to South Carolina so he could adopt her. After she went to college, he went to Europe as a military prosecutor.

“It changed my life,” he said of the military legal corps. “It exposed me to things. I got to spend four years in Europe. I was thrown into court as a young defense attorney doing things, with responsibilities you’d never have in the civilian world as a lawyer.”

Mr. Graham was elected to the House in 1994, where he became widely known for his role as a manager of the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton. He was elected to the Senate in 2002.

Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Armed services Committee, has, along with Senator John McCain of Arizona, been one of Mr. Graham’s Republican allies in bucking the White House on the torture issue. “In an extraordinary way,” Mr. Warner said, “he overcame many obstacles and misfortunes that others never could imagine. His goals posts in life are to do what’s best for the country, what’s best for the military.”

From his time on the defense, Mr. Graham says, he learned that the system provides fairness; from his time as a prosecutor, he came to see the importance of military discipline.

For that reason, he said, it is important that soldiers continue to be trained using the Geneva Conventions, even in a war against a new kind of enemy.

“If a marine caught Osama bin Laden tomorrow, they’re all trained to treat everyone as a prisoner of war under Geneva,” he said. “You don’t want to change that, because you don’t want to confuse your troops out there.”

It becomes trickier, Mr. Graham said, when coming up with the rules for interrogation. He argues that Congress must define what the conventions mean by “humiliating” or “degrading” treatment.

Still, he disputes the assertion of some Republicans that using the court-martial system will result in soldiers’ having to stop in the middle of capturing a terrorist to read him his Miranda rights.

“That’s an offense to the military legal community, who’s telling us there’s a better way, to suggest that that better way would hamper us,” he said. “It’s political rhetoric that’s got to stop.”

His position has met resistance from many of his fellow Republicans. To them, using the military justice system means giving terrorists the same rights as the troops who fight them. Senator John Thune of South Dakota is among the Republicans who have expressed qualms.

“I think that people across the country, as they listen to this debate, are going to apply what is, I think, a very common-sense standard to this,” Mr. Thune said.

He said he preferred the administration’s original plan to establish tribunals that did not rest on the Geneva Conventions.

But Mr. Graham believes Republicans in Congress and the administration will ultimately work to come up with a system that starts with the military code. Mr. . Graham says he is hearing three or four appeals as a military judge. But his own status is pending; a defense lawyer has challenged whether he can be a military judge and serve in the Senate. He laughs as he says he expects the case to be resolved by the military court system soon.

“I disagree, but I may have been wrong,” he said. “Here I am on the receiving end, and I have nothing but respect for it.”

G.O.P. Senator Resisting Bush Over Detainees, NYT, 18.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/washington/18graham.html?hp&ex=1153281600&en=f92c168f97d4a1de&ei=5094&partner=homepage

White House Agrees to Eavesdropping Review, Specter Says

July 13, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:29 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House has conditionally agreed to a court review of its controversial eavesdropping program, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Thursday.

Specter said President Bush has agreed to sign legislation that would authorize the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to review the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's most high-profile monitoring operations.

''You have here a recognition by the president that he does not have a blank check,'' the Pennsylvania Republican told his committee

Since shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the NSA has been eavesdropping on the international calls and e-mails of people inside the United States when terrorism is suspected. Breaking with historic norms, the president authorized the actions without a court warrant.

The disclosure of the program in December sparked outrage among Democrats and civil liberties advocates who said Bush overstepped his authority as president.

Specter said the legislation, which has not yet been made public, was the result of ''tortuous'' negotiations with the White House since June.

''If the bill is not changed, the president will submit the Terrorist Surveillance Program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court,'' Specter said. ''That is the president's commitment.''

It wasn't immediately clear how strong or enduring the judicial oversight would be.

An administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the bill's language gives the president the option of submitting the program to the intelligence court, rather than making the review a requirement.

The official said that Bush will submit to the court review as long the bill is not changed, adding that the legislation preserves the right of future presidents to skip the court review.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's senior Democrat, said Bush could submit the program to the court right now, if he wished. He called the potential legislation ''an interesting bargain.''

''He's saying, if you do every single thing I tell you to do, I'll do what I should have done anyway,'' Leahy said.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the administration still does not believe changes in law are necessary, but added that it remains willing to work with Congress.

''The key point in the bill is that it recognizes the president's constitutional authority,'' she said. ''It modernizes (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) to meet the threat we face from an enemy who kills with abandon.''

Specter told the committee that the bill, among other things, would:

-- Require the attorney general to give the intelligence court information on the program's constitutionality, the government's efforts to protect Americans' identities and the basis used to determine that the intercepted communications involve terrorism.

--Expand the time for emergency warrants secured under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from three to seven days.

--Create a new offense if government officials misuse information.

--At the NSA's request, clarify that international calls that merely pass through terminals in the United States are not subject to the judicial process established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The administration official, who asked not to be identified because discussions are still ongoing, said the bill also would give the attorney general power to consolidate the 100 lawsuits filed against the surveillance operations into one case before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Specter did not explain to his committee that detail, which is likely to raise the ire of civil liberties groups.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in an interview that Specter's agreement with the White House raises the ''thorny question'' about whether the content of conversations should be subject to individual courts warrants.

''I really need to see the bill,'' said Feinstein, one of a select group of lawmakers who has been fully briefed on the monitoring operations.

White House Agrees to Eavesdropping Review, Specter Says, NYT, 13.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Eavesdropping.html?hp&ex=1152849600&en=2441c18a3f8da880&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Steve Sack Minnesota, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune Cagle 13.7.2006
http://cagle.com/sack/

Administration Prods Congress to Curb the Rights of Detainees

July 13, 2006
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, July 12 — A day after saying that terror suspects had a right to protections under the Geneva Conventions, the Bush administration said Wednesday that it wanted Congress to pass legislation that would limit the rights granted to detainees.

The earlier statement had been widely interpreted as a retreat, but testimony to Congress by administration lawyers on Wednesday made clear that the picture was more complicated.

The administration has now abandoned its four-year-old claim that members of Al Qaeda are not protected under the Geneva Conventions, acknowledging that a Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago established as a matter of law that they are. Still, administration lawyers urged Congress to pass legislation that would narrowly define the rights granted to detainees under a provision of the Geneva Conventions known as Common Article Three, which guarantees legal rights “recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”

The maneuvering now under way was prompted by that Supreme Court decision, which struck down the tribunals the administration had established for terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The court left it to Congress to decide what kind of trials to set up for detainees and what protections they should be granted in interrogations and handling before trial.

Administration lawyers have argued that the “most desirable” solution would be for Congress to pass a law approving the tribunals that the court said the president could not establish on his own, proceedings that would grant minimum rights to detainees.

But some leading senators said they believed that the White House stance might still be evolving, despite the public pronouncements by the lawyers who appeared before Congress. In particular, they thought the White House might be open to a solution that would abandon the tribunal approach in favor of one that would modify court-martial procedures to reflect the realities of putting terror suspects on trial.

“I wouldn’t say that that testimony would set the final parameters of where the administration will go on this,” said Senator John Warner of Virginia, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

As President Bush headed to Europe on Wednesday, his spokesman, Tony Snow, said, “The White House is now working with Congress to try to come up with a means of providing justice for detainees at Guantánamo in a manner that’s consistent with the Supreme Court’s ruling’’ in the case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.

In addition to guaranteeing legal rights, Common Article Three prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.” In testimony, administration lawyers said that the article was too vague, and that because failure to comply with Common Article Three was a violation of the War Crimes Act, applying the article to detainees could lead to American troops being charged with felony crimes for interrogation tactics that might be argued to be too harsh.

“Congress needs to do something to bring clarity and certainty to Common Article Three,” Steven G. Bradbury, an acting assistant attorney general, told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

Administration lawyers argued that the White House’s statement Tuesday night was not a shift, but an announcement and an interpretation of the court’s decision. In an interview, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said he agreed.

“I think what they’re saying is, Until we get further direction we’re going to do the following,” Mr. Graham said. “That doesn’t preclude them or us from giving definition.”

The outcome of the debate could affect detainees around the world. The Pentagon holds about 1,000 Qaeda and Taliban detainees at Guantánamo and at bases in Afghanistan. An estimated three dozen terror suspects are believed to be held by the C.I.A. at secret sites abroad.

In a week of hearings on Capitol Hill, administration lawyers have argued that the best way to bring detainees to trial after the court’s ruling would be for Congress to ratify the military commissions the court struck down, with what Daniel J. Dell’Orto, a Pentagon deputy general counsel, described as “minor tweaking.”

But several scholars and military lawyers have said that the best way to meet the court’s requirements on providing legal and human rights to detainees would be to start with the court-martial procedure set up in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and modify that.

Several lawmakers have said that only a solution that extended Geneva protections to detainees would survive another court challenge.

“It’s got to be dealt with so that we do not face a future court challenge, and also so that the international community recognizes our credibility in dealing with these things,” said Senator Warner, whose Armed Services Committee will hold hearings on the issue on Thursday.

Military lawyers, human rights groups and some lawmakers have warned that an effort by Congress to limit the rights granted to terror suspects under the Geneva Conventions would blacken the United States’ reputation internationally, by effectively announcing to the world that it was reneging on a fundamental and commonly held notion of human rights.

“We should embrace Common Article Three and sing its praises from the rooftops,” Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, a former judge advocate general of the Navy who is retired, told the Armed Services Committee. “To avoid it or try to draft our way out of it is unbecoming the United States.”

But administration lawyers argue that the vagueness of the language in the provision — including the right to “judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples’’ — opened the way to problems.

“We just think as you approach these issues, you should give definition and certainty to these issues,” Mr. Bradbury told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Even some Republicans who are fighting the administration’s approach on establishing trials for the terror suspects agree on the need to limit the application of Article Three.

Senator Graham, who pointedly warned administration lawyers that the president would not win by fighting for his approach on trials, said in interviews that Common Article Three must be “reined in.” He said it would make death penalty crimes of current interrogation techniques, including keeping detainees awake and forcing them to sit in extremely hot or cold cells — methods he referred to as “things that are not torture but are aggressive.”

“What we need to do is take the ruling of Hamdan and define it so that people will not be unfairly prosecuted because they didn’t know what was in bounds or not,” Mr. Graham said.

Mr. Graham said defining Article Three would be “the hardest part” of the debate on how to bring detainees to trial. He suggested that Congress could limit it in a way that resembled the language of the measure setting standards for the treatment of detainees that was written by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and signed into law last year.

“It says that every detainee will be treated humanely and that cruel, inhumane treatment will not be allowed against detainees,” Mr. Graham said. “Common Article Three with its language goes well beyond the McCain standard.”

Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Dell’Orto, too, expressed a preference for Mr. McCain’s language.

Legal experts agree that the White House’s announcement that it would give Article Three rights to detainees puts future cases of detainee abuse, like those at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004, into the category of war crimes. It raises the stakes, they said, for how American troops treat detainees in military custody.

“This isn’t a ‘trust me’ kind of undertaking anymore,” said Diane Orentlicher, a professor of law at American University in Washington. “It’s now a legal obligation.”

Mark Mazzetti and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting for this article.

Administration Prods Congress to Curb the Rights of Detainees, NYT, 13.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/washington/13gitmo.html?hp&ex=1152849600&en=bcab8dcbbad5f3fc&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Terror and Presidential Power: Bush Takes a Step Back

July 12, 2006
News Analysis
By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, July 11 — From the outset, President Bush declared that the battle against Al Qaeda would be a war like no other, fought by new rules against new enemies not entitled to the old protections afforded to either prisoners of war or criminal defendants.

But the White House acknowledgment on Tuesday that a key clause of the Geneva Conventions applies to Qaeda detainees, as a recent Supreme Court ruling affirmed, is only the latest step in the gradual erosion of the administration’s aggressive legal stance.

The administration’s initial position emerged in 2002 only after a fierce internal legal debate, and it has been revised in the face of international opinion, Congressional curbs and Supreme Court rulings. Two central ideas of the war on terror — that the president could fight it exclusively on the basis of his constitutional powers and that terrorist suspects had few, if any, rights — have been modified repeatedly.

Scholars debated the meaning of a Defense Department memo made public on Tuesday that declared that the clause in the Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3, “applies as a matter of law to the conflict with Al Qaeda.”

Administration officials suggested that the memo only restated what was already policy — that detainees must be treated “humanely.” But what was undeniable was that the president’s executive order of Feb. 7, 2002, declared that Article 3 did not apply to Al Qaeda or to Taliban detainees, and that the newly released memo, written by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, said it did.

After the Pentagon released the memo, the White House confirmed that it had formally withdrawn part of the 2002 order and accepted that Article 3 now applied to Qaeda detainees. That article prohibits “humiliating and degrading treatment” of prisoners and requires trials “affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”

“This is an important course correction, and there are political ramifications to it,” said Scott L. Silliman, an expert on the law of war at Duke University. Top defense officials “never really clarified when Geneva applied and when it didn’t,” he said.

Richard H. Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina, said the administration might have anticipated that it would have to adjust its policies, formed under immense pressure after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“They were going to reach as far as possible to prosecute this war, and if they were forced to scale back, they’d scale back,” Mr. Kohn said. “Almost from the beginning, the administration has had to back away and fuzz up the issues.”

If there has been a retreat, it may partly reflect a change in the perceived threat from Al Qaeda since the disorienting days after Sept. 11. As months, then years, passed without a new attack in the United States, the toughest measures seemed steadily less justifiable.

“As time passed, and no more buildings were blowing up, it was no longer an emergency, and the rules had to be renegotiated,” said Dennis E. Showalter, a professor of history at Colorado College.

In retrospect, all the contradictions that have emerged in the last four years were present in embryo in the 2002 presidential order.

The order began by noting that “our recent extensive discussions” had shown that deciding how Geneva rules would apply to Qaeda prisoners “involves complex legal questions.” It said that the conventions’ protections did not apply to terror suspects, but also that “our values as a nation” nonetheless “call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment.”

In 2003, the administration decided that Article 3 would be applied to all prisoners captured in Iraq — even non-Iraqi members of Al Qaeda. But the May 2004 revelations of abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib showed that the policy had not always been followed, and in response, the Defense Department repeatedly whittled down the list of approved interrogation techniques.

In 2004, the Justice Department reversed course as well, formally withdrawing a 2002 opinion asserting that nothing short of treatment resulting in “organ failure” was banned as torture.

In late 2005, the administration was forced to accept legislation proposed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to ban “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of prisoners held by the United States anywhere in the world.

In the meantime, the Supreme Court was knocking down some of the administration’s key assertions of presidential power in the battle against terror.

In Rasul v. Bush in 2004, the court ruled that American courts had the authority to decide whether foreign terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had been rightfully detained. And on June 29, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the court rejected the administration’s rules for military commissions set up to try Guantánamo detainees, saying it had failed to seek Congressional approval and had fallen short of the standards set by law and the Geneva Conventions.

It was the Hamdan ruling that prompted Mr. England’s memo. “It is my understanding,” he wrote, that all current Defense Department rules were already in compliance with Article 3.

But Mr. England’s wording suggested that after all the policy adjustment since 2002, he was not certain everyone was operating from the same playbook: “I request that you promptly review all relevant directives, regulations, policies, practices and procedures under your purview to ensure that they comply with the standard of Common Article 3.”

Mr. England’s uncertainty was not surprising, Mr. Silliman said. Mixed messages over exactly which rules applied where, and which Geneva protections were to be honored and which ignored, were at the root of prisoner abuse scandals from Guantánamo to Iraq to Afghanistan, he said.

“It’s clear when you look at Abu Ghraib and everything else that there was a tremendous amount of confusion,” Mr. Silliman said.

Even as legal experts parsed Mr. England’s memo, confusion lingered. The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the memo as “a first big step” toward ending “four years of lawlessness” on detainee issues. But it also noted that in testimony Tuesday, other administration officials suggested that Congress simply adopt as law the proposed military commissions in exactly the form that civil libertarians say falls far short of Article 3.

That skepticism was shared by Martin S. Lederman, a former Justice Department official now at the Georgetown University law school.

“The administration has fought tooth and nail for four years to say Common Article 3 does not apply to Al Qaeda,” Mr. Lederman said. “Having lost that fight, I’m afraid they’re now saying, ‘Never mind, we’ve been in compliance with Article 3 all along.’ ”

Terror and Presidential Power: Bush Takes a Step Back, NYT, 12.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/washington/12detain.html?hp&ex=1152763200&en=1099effbec671271&ei=5094&partner=homepage

News Analysis

Bush Steps Up Effort to Focus on Strength of Economy

July 12, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

MILWAUKEE, July 11 — Blessed with a growing economy but facing voters who do not give him much credit for it, President Bush is intensifying efforts to persuade the public that things are looking up, with the aim of giving Republicans a boost in the midterm elections.

In a barrage of public appearances over the past week — a visit to a microelectronics company outside Chicago, the swearing in of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. on Monday, a White House speech on Tuesday morning pointing out a lower-than-expected deficit and a visit to a shoe factory near here on Tuesday afternoon — Mr. Bush has been making the case that his tax cuts have brought jobs and prosperity to Americans.

“Today is a good day for the American taxpayer,” Mr. Bush said at the White House before flying here.

The president was announcing that this year’s budget deficit would be $296 billion, as opposed to the earlier estimate of $423 billion.

“Tax relief is working, the economy is growing, revenues are up, the deficits are down,” Mr. Bush said, “and all across this great land, Americans are realizing their dreams and building better futures for their families.”

But some economists say that the picture is not all that rosy and that this is one reason Mr. Bush is not getting the customary bump in the polls from what his advisers call “robust economic growth and job creation.”

High gasoline prices, rising interest rates and unease over the war in Iraq are mostly to blame.

“High-income households, wealthier households, are doing fabulously well, but lower-middle-income households are struggling,” said Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Economy.com, a nonpartisan, independent subsidiary of Moody’s, the credit rating agency. “It really is a tale of two households, and I think President Bush is not going to gain traction on the economy as long as there is this wide disparity.”

Mr. Bush and his aides say the president’s tax cuts have spurred economic growth, resulting in increased federal revenue, which has led to the drop in the deficit.

“People are personally pleased with their economic position but are anxious about the future,” said Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, calling the shoe factory visit “a real-life example that our economy is growing and prospering.”

The factory, Allen-Edmonds, specializes in high-quality men’s dress shoes, including some owned by Mr. Bush.

By visiting, the president sought to draw attention to a company that has resisted industrywide pressure to move its operations overseas.

The company president, John Stollenwerk, gave Mr. Bush a pair of red, white and blue wingtip shoes, which the president promptly put on.

Mr. Bush said Allen-Edmonds had benefited from his tax cuts, calling it “an American-based company making good American products.”

Later, the president attended a fund-raiser for Representative Mark Green, the Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin, where he called for his tax cuts to be made permanent.

The president ticked off a litany of challenges his administration had faced: recession, corporate scandal, natural disaster and the war on terror. “And yet,” Mr. Bush said, “this economy of ours is strong and we intend to keep it that way.”

By standard measurements, the economy does look good: a 4.6 percent unemployment rate, 5.4 million new jobs since August 2003 and a gross domestic product that grew an average of 4 percent in the past three years.

But a poll released last month by the Pew Research Center found that just 33 percent of respondents approved of Mr. Bush’s handling of the economy, while 54 percent disapproved. And a June survey by the University of Michigan, which tracks consumer confidence in government economic policies, found that 39 percent said Mr. Bush was doing a poor job, while 13 percent said he was doing a good job, and 47 percent rated him as fair.

Aides to Mr. Bush say they believe that the economy is one of three issues that will be central to the midterm elections. But the other two — Iraq and immigration — are so much on voters’ minds that some analysts say no matter how much Mr. Bush focuses on the economy, voters are unlikely to tune in.

In addition to Mr. Bush’s appearances, other administration officials, including Rob Portman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Al Hubbard, director of the National Economic Council, were also giving interviews and making public appearances.

“Obviously, it’s frustrating to us that the American people don’t recognize how well the economy is doing,” Mr. Hubbard said.

Congressional Republicans were quick to pick up on Mr. Bush’s theme on Tuesday, but fiscal conservatives, an important part of the Republican base, were strongly critical of federal spending. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, an advocacy group that wants more fiscal restraint, said Mr. Bush was making a mistake by focusing on the deficit.

“The deficit is the wrong metric,” Mr. Norquist said. “No one has ever won or lost an election on the deficit.”

Bush Steps Up Effort to Focus on Strength of Economy, NYT, 12.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/washington/12bush.html

Bush calls alleged rape-murder 'despicable'

Updated 7/7/2006 12:46 AM ET
AP
USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush, calling the alleged rape of an Iraqi girl and the murder of her and her family by a U.S. soldier "a despicable crime, if true," said Thursday that Iraqis will learn about the openness of American justice.

Steven D. Green, a former Army private with the 101st Airborne Division, pleaded not guilty to charges Thursday. Green and other soldiers were accused of targeting the girl after seeing her near the Iraqi town of Mahmoudiya earlier this year.

"These are very serious charges and what the Iraqis must understand is that we will deal with these in a very transparent, upfront way," Bush said during an interview broadcast on CNN's "Larry King Live."

"People will be held to account if these charges are true," Bush said. He later added: "People will be brought to justice. There will be absolute justice if this person is guilty."

The president said he was concerned about how the allegations might color perceptions of American troops.

"What concerns me is not only the action and, you know, if this is true, the despicable crime, if true. But what I don't want to have happen is for people to then say, well, the U.S. military is full of these kind of people. That is not the case. Our military is fabulous."

Bush said the Iraq government has the right to be concerned about how the case is handled. "But they've got to be comforted in knowing ... that we will deal with this in a way that is going to be transparent, above-board and open," he said.

Earlier Thursday, Bush questioned whether some of Iraq's neighbors were working against the fledging Iraqi government.

"We, of course, are concerned that some in the neighborhood may want to derail the progress of a free Iraq," he said. "And that is troubling and something that we'll work on."

The president spoke after meeting in the Oval Office with Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad, who gave him an update on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's first trip in office to visit his Persian Gulf neighbors.

The United States pushed hard for al-Maliki's trip to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. While al-Maliki received red-carpet welcomes, the leaders privately made clear they will help the Iraqi government only if he does more to reach out to Iraqi Sunnis. The Gulf nations are dominated by Sunni governments leery of Shiite and Kurdish dominance of Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Bush also expressed concern about foreign intervention in Iraq, an apparent reference to Iran and Syria. U.S. officials accuse the two nations of turning a blind eye to the influx of violent militants. Both Syria and Iran have denied the claims, saying it is difficult to fully patrol their porous borders with Iraq.

"Zal is concerned about foreign influences in the country, as am I," Bush said.

Bush said Khalilzad gave him a "realistic" briefing on the situation in Iraq.

"On the one hand, he said they've got a good government — goal-oriented people who are working to achieve certain objectives," Bush said. "And I know that you've been impressed by Prime Minister Maliki's determination to succeed and his willingness to lay out a commonsense agenda and then hold people to account.

"Zal also said it's still a dangerous place because there are people there that will do anything to stop the progress of this new government."

Khalilzad, who went on the trip with al-Maliki, called Iraq the defining challenge of the time. "What happens in Iraq will shape the future of the Middle East, and the future of the Middle East will shape the future of the world," Khalilzad said.

Bush calls alleged rape-murder 'despicable' , UT, 7.7.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-07-bush-iraq_x.htm

The TV Watch

President Has a Smooth Ride on 'Larry King Live'

July 7, 2006
The New York Times
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Two kinds of celebrities go on "Larry King Live" on CNN: those with something to sell and those with something to hide.

Al Gore and Brandon Routh, the young star of the newly released "Superman Returns," recently appeared on the show to promote their new movies. The second category includes guests like Star Jones Reynolds, Mary Kay Letourneau, and, right after his indictment in 2004, Kenneth L. Lay of Enron. "Larry King Live" is the first stop in any damage control operation — a chance to explain oneself to the least contentious journalist in the land.

And that is why President Bush invited the CNN talk show host to the White House on his 60th birthday. The standoff with North Korea over its missile tests, the war in Iraq and ever-sliding ratings in the polls have given the president little reason to celebrate. Mr. King gave the president a chance to defend his policies without risk of interruption or follow-up.

At times, Mr. King even provided the president with answers. "You've always had a lot of compassion for the Mexican people," the interviewer interjected in a discussion of the president's immigration bill. Mr. Bush seemed a little surprised, but grateful. "Yes, sir!" he replied.

The hourlong interview was taped Thursday in the Blue Room of the White House with Mr. King crouched in the foreground across a small round table from the president and Laura Bush, dressed in his trademark suspenders and cowboy boots.

After a brief, good-humored exchange about how the president felt about turning 60, Mr. King asked Mr. Bush about North Korea vaguely enough for the president to repeat what he said earlier in the day in an appearance with the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, about the need for a united stand to bring the North Korean president to reason.

Other than the fact that Mr. Bush promised not to lecture President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia before the Group of Eight meeting next week in St. Petersburg, Mr. King did not elicit news or curveballs from the president.

Even when he ventured into areas like the war in Iraq, public opinion polls or the president's past friendship with Mr. Lay, Mr. King looked less like an interrogator than a hotel concierge gently removing lint from a customer's coat. Mr. King's questions rarely rile his guests; instead, his cozy, incurious style encourages them to expose themselves.

And just as Liza Minnelli seemed to come unglued all on her own in her appearance on the show last March, Mr. Bush at times seemed tense and defensive even without needling from his host. "I've been popular before, as president," Mr. Bush said tightly. "And I've been — people have accepted what I've been doing." He added: "Sometimes things go up and down. The best way to lead and the best way to solve problems is to focus on a set of principles. And do what you think is right."

The president appeared on Mr. King's show twice before, in 2000 and in 2004, but those were campaign interviews. On Thursday, the president was fighting to improve his battered image.

When he was at a loss for words, Mrs. Bush stepped in to speak on his behalf, sometimes with more dexterity than her husband. "Well, sure, you know, we worried about it, obviously," Mrs. Bush replied when asked whether she was rattled by the North Korean missile tests. "But what I spent the day doing actually was watching our shuttle take off from Florida."

Mrs. Bush even managed to politely set Mr. King straight when he somewhat puzzlingly described Mr. Putin as "very Western."

"Well, I don't know if I would say that," she said gently. "I think he's very Russian. But I like him a lot."

It wasn't live, but it was classic Larry King: a warm bath, not a hot seat.

President Has a Smooth Ride on 'Larry King Live', NYT, 7.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/washington/07teevee.html?hp&ex=1152331200&en=edca849fb9e7e86a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

A Touchy Topic: Boomer in Chief Hits the Big 6-0

July 6, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, July 5 — Let us now peek into the psyche of America's most powerful baby boomer, George W. Bush.

He is not given to self-analysis — "George is not an overly introspective person," his wife, Laura, once said with dry understatement — but Mr. Bush turns 60 on Thursday, and like most other men hitting that milestone, he just cannot seem to get the thought off his mind.

Here is the president in June at a community college in Omaha, trying to convince himself that turning 60 is no big deal: "I'm not supposed to talk about myself, but in a month I'm turning 60. For you youngsters, I want to tell you something. When I was your age, I thought 60 was really old. It's all in your mind. It's not that old, it really isn't."

And here is Mr. Bush in the Rose Garden a few weeks ago, having just returned from a surprise trip to Baghdad, when asked how he was feeling: "I'm doing all right. A little jet-lagged, as I'm sure you can imagine — nearly 60."

Could it be that Mr. Bush, with his enviably low heart rate and penchant for two-hour mountain bike rides that exhaust Secret Service agents half his age, is worried about getting old? Is that why the president, so mindful of proper attire that he demands a coat and tie in the Oval Office even on weekends, wore a decidedly youthful red-and-white Hawaiian shirt to his two-days-early birthday dinner in the East Room of the White House Tuesday night?

If the president is worried about getting old, his friends say, he certainly has not confessed it to them, though they recognize the Big 6-0 could be a touchy subject. Mr. Bush took four friends along with him on Air Force One for a trip to Ft. Bragg, N.C., on Tuesday; all were mum about the impending birthday, refusing to disclose even the teeniest detail of the party or gifts.

The president's first cousin John Ellis said he had not broached the birthday topic with Mr. Bush, and did not intend to.

"Sixty is the grimmest, don't you think?" said Mr. Ellis, who is 53. "All these boomers lie to themselves and say at 50 you're really 40. But at 60, you can't do that anymore."

Mr. Bush, having been born in 1946, is on the leading edge of the baby boom (as is former President Bill Clinton, who also turns 60 this summer) and experts in aging say he is setting a fine example for his peers. And though Mr. Bush does seem to have aged a bit in office — his hair is a little grayer, his knees gave out so he switched to biking from running — he has not had the precipitous physical decline of some of his predecessors.

"He does seem a little less full-faced and a little less wide-eyed than at the beginning, but not dramatically like you see with these other guys," said Doris Kearns Goodwin, the historian and aide to President Lyndon B. Johnson. "You don't see a drawn look. It's as if somehow he has psychologically not allowed the burdens to fully get to him. Maybe it's the exercise, maybe it's his sureness about his own decisions."

The exercise helps. Dr. Kenneth Cooper, a Dallas fitness expert who is one of the president's doctors, said that Mr. Bush had "an amazing aerobic capacity" and that his performance on treadmill stress tests put him in the top 1 percent of men his age. And Dr. Cooper said the president seemed determined to keep it that way; he often trains for the test.

"He's dedicated," Dr. Cooper said. "Disciplined and dedicated."

It does not hurt that Mr. Bush comes from healthy stock; the Bushes do not go gently into old age. The first President Bush went skydiving to celebrate his 80th birthday two years ago — a feat that brought forth an admiring joke from his son Tuesday to soldiers at Fort Bragg.

"He's the only skydiving president," Mr. Bush said, "and that's a distinction he's going to keep."

A recent AARP study of people turning 60 found that nearly 77 percent of them said they were satisfied with their lives over all, and Mr. Bush certainly seems in step with his peers. If most people at 60 are looking back at their best days, Mr. Bush, who says he turned his life around when he quit drinking at age 40, gives the impression that he is living them.

"I think this is a marker in his life," said Mark McKinnon, who was Mr. Bush's media strategist for both of his presidential campaigns. "And I think like a lot of us who had some hard living chapters, we're kind of surprised that we're here and that our bodies have held up. I think maybe there's a piece of that, that here he is 20 years later and much healthier than he was at 40."

So the president at 60 is hardly pulling the covers over his head. But neither was he interested in a showy celebration.

"It's no Madison Square Garden," the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, told reporters, referring to the glamorous bash being planned next month for Mr. Clinton's 60th, a fund-raiser for charities he supports.

By contrast, Mr. Bush's birthday gala was a low-key affair: a buffet dinner of fried chicken, Cajun shrimp, potato salad and roasted corn, and a large chocolate cake.

His daughters, Jenna and Barbara, prepared a "very cute and light-hearted" video, a guest said, complete with old photos, including some of Mr. Bush's failed 1978 bid for Congress, and their typical wry commentary.

As for gifts, White House aides said only that they gave the boss two pairs of cufflinks. He wore one pair Wednesday.

The actual birthday on Thursday will be business as usual. Mr. Bush will meet with the prime minister of Canada, and then fly to Chicago, where the most powerful baby boomer (and Republican) in America will spend the evening he turns 60 having dinner with local leaders and Mayor Richard M. Daley — a Democrat.

A Touchy Topic: Boomer in Chief Hits the Big 6-0, NYT, 6.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/washington/06bush.html?hp&ex=1152244800&en=8bd34f9f9603cc02&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush Signaling Shift in Stance on Immigration

July 5, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, July 4 — On the eve of nationwide hearings that could determine the fate of his immigration bill, President Bush is signaling a new willingness to negotiate with House Republicans in an effort to revise the stalled legislation before Election Day.

Republicans both inside and outside the White House say Mr. Bush, who has long insisted on comprehensive reform, is now open to a so-called enforcement-first approach that would put new border security programs in place before creating a guest worker program or path to citizenship for people living in the United States illegally.

"He thinks that this notion that you can have triggers is something we should take a close look at, and we are," said Candi Wolff, the White House director of legislative affairs, referring to the idea that guest worker and citizenship programs would be triggered when specific border security goals had been met, a process that could take two years.

The shift is significant because Mr. Bush has repeatedly said he favors legislation like the Senate's immigration bill, which establishes border security, guest worker and citizenship programs all at once. The enforcement-first approach puts Mr. Bush one step closer to the House, where Republicans are demanding an enforcement-only measure.

"The willingness to consider a phased-in situation, that's a pretty big concession from where they were at," said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, whose closeness to Mr. Bush dates to his days as a top Republican National Committee official. "It's a suggestion they are willing to negotiate."

In a sign of that willingness, the White House last week invited a leading conservative proponent of an enforcement-first bill, Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, to present his ideas to Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the Oval Office.

Ms. Wolff said the president found the Pence plan "pretty intriguing."

In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Pence said the president used precisely those words in their talk. Mr. Pence said that the meeting was scheduled to last 10 or 20 minutes but went on for 40, and that the president "was quite adamant throughout the meeting to make the point that he hoped I would be encouraged."

Mr. Bush has little choice but to negotiate, although he is on delicate terrain. Some House Republicans remain deeply opposed to even a guest worker program, and any move closer to the House could upset the delicate bipartisan compromise that enabled legislation to pass the Senate.

Polls show the public is deeply troubled by the problem of illegal immigration, and Mr. Bush, who has made the issue his domestic policy initiative, is eager for a victory on Capitol Hill. But a carefully constructed White House strategy to prod the House and Senate into compromise collapsed last month when skittish House Republicans opted for field hearings instead.

The House hearings begin Wednesday in Laredo, Tex., and San Diego and will continue throughout the summer. In the Senate, Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, will convene his committee on Wednesday in Philadelphia.

The meetings will undoubtedly expose the deep Republican rift just as the elections draw near, and some say they are simply a way to stave off legislation until after November. Democrats, eager to pick up Congressional seats, intend to use the hearings to drive home the idea that Republicans have failed to address illegal immigration, a tactic that could further complicate prospects for a bill before Election Day.

One major question is whether Mr. Bush would give up on a path to citizenship for some of the estimated 11 million to 12 million people living here illegally. He has said repeatedly that it is impractical to deport those who have lived in the United States for a long time and built lives here; the Senate bill permits some longtime illegal residents to become eligible for citizenship if they learned English and paid taxes and a fine.

Many House Republicans deride such a proposal as amnesty. Mr. Pence would require illegal immigrants — even those in the United States for decades — to leave the country briefly before returning, with proper documentation, to participate in a guest worker system. Private employment agencies would set up shop overseas to process applications; after six years in a guest worker program, an immigrant could apply for citizenship.

"I believe it's amnesty if you can get right with the law by paying a fine but never have to go home," Mr. Pence said.

Whether Mr. Bush would accept that is not clear. Aides to Mr. Bush, including Karl Rove, the White House chief political strategist, and Tony Snow, the press secretary, say he remains adamant that any bill must address the status of the immigrants who are here illegally.

But one Republican close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, predicted that Mr. Bush would ultimately abandon the idea of a path to citizenship.

Giving up, though, would doom the legislation in the Senate. Mr. Pence met last week with leading Republican senators, including Mr. Specter, John McCain of Arizona and Mel Martinez of Florida.

In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Specter said that proponents of the Senate bill "are determined to see comprehensive" legislation, and that "comprehensive means all parts, including the 11 million." But he also said that he was very interested in Mr. Pence's approach, and that the tenor of the meeting was that the Senate could "move toward a middle ground" with the House.

The question now is whether President Bush will be able to find that middle ground in time for the midterm elections. Mr. Cole, the Oklahoma Republican, was not optimistic.

"Our people would like to have some sort of solution," he said, "but my instinct tells me this is much more likely to be a post-November, or a 2007 kind of deal than it is to happen between now and then."

Carl Hulse contributed reporting for this article.

Bush Signaling Shift in Stance on Immigration, NYT, 5.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/washington/05immig.html?hp&ex=1152158400&en=11ca89d55b943953&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Addressing Soldiers, Bush Denounces Early Pullout in Iraq

July 5, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

FORT BRAGG, N.C., July 4 — In a rousing Independence Day speech to hundreds of soldiers and their families, President Bush warned on Tuesday that setting an artificial timetable for withdrawal of Iraq would be "a terrible mistake" and took the rare step of mentioning the precise number of war dead.

"I'm going to make you this promise," Mr. Bush told a cheering throng under a blistering late-morning sun. "I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who have died in Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done."

Speaking against the backdrop of a 15-foot-high bronze statue of a paratrooper nicknamed Iron Mike, the president brought approving yells from the crowd when he reminded it that special-operations forces from Fort Bragg were the first to arrive on the scene after the bombing that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Qaeda leader in Iraq.

"They administered compassionate medical care to a man who showed no compassion to his victims," the president said. "And when this brutal terrorist took his final breath, one of the last things he saw was the face of an American soldier from Fort Bragg, N.C."

Earlier, Mr. Bush met members of the special-operations command, including an Army pilot who was present at the capture of Saddam Hussein outside Tikrit and then flew Mr. Hussein by helicopter from there to a base in Baghdad.

The president looked surprised when the pilot, whose name was not released by the base, gave his account. "Did you really?" Mr. Bush asked. "Good job."

After the brief trip here, Mr. Bush left to return to the White House for the Fourth of July celebration, which this year will double as a birthday party for the president, who turns 60 on Thursday. [Aides had kept details of the party under wraps all week, but on Tuesday night they said that Mr. Bush, wearing a red and white Hawaiian shirt and casual slacks, celebrated in an East Room dinner with friends, family and staff members and dined on fried chicken, Cajun shrimp, biscuits, salads and a three-tier chocolate cake.]

Addressing Soldiers, Bush Denounces Early Pullout in Iraq, NYT, 5.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/washington/05bush.html

Bush Thanks Troops for Service in Iraq

July 4, 2006
The New York Times
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

In a speech marking Independence Day, President Bush thanked American troops for their service in Iraq and elsewhere, rousing thousands of soldiers to applause by saying that they were winning the war, but warning them that it was far from over.

Mr. Bush, speaking at Fort Bragg, a major Army base in North Carolina, said that since the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an American airstrike last month in Iraq, there have been 190 raids by coalition troops in Iraq, 700 enemy "operatives" have been captured and 60 or more killed. He said fresh intelligence had helped American forces keep the pressure on terrorists, and that the United States would continue to strike at their networks.

"There is more work to be done in Iraq", Mr. Bush said.

Speaking to an audience estimated at 3,500, with live television coverage of his remarks, Mr. Bush took advantage of the platform to praise an American commander who was injured and then returned to his troops in Afghanistan, and to urge Americans to volunteer to support soldiers in the field.

As he had in previous speeches, Mr. Bush again cast the American military's participation in Iraq as part of a broader American campaign against terrorism around the world, emphasizing the importance of the American deployments in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and promised the troops "the resources you need" to succeed.

"You are winning this war," he said, before adding later: "Prevailing in Iraq is going to require more tough fighting; it's going to require more sacrifice."

Mr. Bush added that it would be a "terrible mistake" to set an "artificial timetable" for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, saying that such a step would undermine morale and send the wrong message to the enemy.

"I'm going to make you this promise: I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 troops who have died in Iraq to be in vain, by pulling out before the job is done," Mr. Bush said.

Standing under a towering statue of "Iron Mike," depicting an airborne trooper who has just finished a combat jump, Mr. Bush delivered his speech as violence persisted in Iraq with the kidnapping of a deputy minister in the Iraqi government. American troops are also facing a resurgence of Taliban resistance in some parts of Afghanistan.

Some 5,688 soldiers from Fort Bragg are deployed around the world: in Iraq, Afghanistan, Central and South America and throughout the Pacific Rim. The base is home to the XVIII Airborne Corps and the army's Special Operations command.

Overall, 45,000 soldiers are stationed at the fort, the second largest base in the United States. Fort Hood in Texas has about a thousand more soldiers, according to Tom McCollum, the base's deputy public affairs officer.

After his speech, Mr. Bush had lunch with the troops, serving himself salad and macaroni, and calling out greetings to soldiers as photographers and reporters hovered nearby.

He also met the Army pilot from the 160th Special Operations unit who flew the helicopter that carried Saddam Hussein away from the site of his capture in Iraq.

"Did you really?" Mr. Bush said, when he met the pilot, according to a pool report. "Good job."

Soldiers presented him with a birthday cake after he had eaten lunch. Mr. Bush will turn 60 on Thursday.

American military deaths, including those of Department of Defense civilian contractors, since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq reached 2,530 as of June 30, according to the Defense Department. Nearly 18,700 American soldiers have been wounded in action, the department said.

Bush Thanks Troops for Service in Iraq, NYT, 4.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/washington/04cnd-prexy.html?hp&ex=1152072000&en=424c2b660402c8f1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Anti-war protesters begin July 4 fast

Mon Jul 3, 2006 8:12 PM ET
Reuters
By Amanda Beck

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About 150 protesters sat in front of the White House on Monday to savor their last meal before starting a hunger strike that some said will continue until American troops return from Iraq.

The demonstration marking the Independence Day holiday was organized by CodePink, a women's anti-war group that called on volunteers to abstain from eating for 24 hours from midnight on Monday.

Some protesters said their fast would continue beyond July 4th.

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, said she would drink only water throughout the summer, which she said she would spend outside President George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"This war is a crime," Sheehan told a crowd of clapping, cheering protesters. "We represent millions of Americans who withdraw their support from this government."

The demonstrators crouched in the muggy evening next to a piece of pink plastic, spread down the road as a table and table-cloth in one. It was covered with wilted pink sunflowers and plates of vegetarian curry, white rice, and beans.

The demonstration aimed at highlighting the costs of the war, in which more than 2,500 U.S. soldiers and thousands of Iraqis have died, said CodePink spokeswoman Meredith Dearborn.

"We have to put our own lives on the line, and I'm willing to do that," said activist Diane Wilson, who pledged to fast until the United States withdraws from Iraq.

Dearborn said 2,700 other activists nationwide, including actors Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, would work as a relay team passing the fast daily from one to another.

Anti-war protesters begin July 4 fast, R, 3.7.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-07-04T001123Z_01_N03375286_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-PROTEST.xml

A New Partnership Binds Old Republican Rivals

July 3, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG and ADAM NAGOURNEY

After years of competitive and often contentious dealings, President Bush and Senator John McCain of Arizona are building a deepening if impersonal relationship that is serving the political needs of both men.

Given their history of intense rivalry and sometimes personally bitter combat, their newfound partnership is seen by some Republicans as born more of political calculation than personal evolution. Either way, it could prove valuable to Mr. McCain in his efforts to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 by sending a signal to Mr. Bush's conservative base and fund-raising network that, at a minimum, the White House will not stand in the Arizonan's way.

The president had Mr. McCain to the White House three times in one week recently to talk about how Mr. Bush should make the case for the war in Iraq and how to break the wall of conservative opposition to the immigration measures proposed by both men. Mr. McCain was back in the Oval Office again on Tuesday to talk about ways to win approval of the line-item veto.

Behind the scenes, during a month in which he repeatedly came to Mr. Bush's public defense, Mr. McCain called the president to offer words of support, he recounted in an interview.

"I said, 'Look, hang on, things are bad,' " Mr. McCain said. "I said, 'I'm proud of the job you are doing, and I wanted you to know that I will continue to do what I can to help.'

"I've tried, when his numbers went down, to be more supportive and outspoken, because I'd love to pick him up," Mr. McCain said.

The senator showed that again on Sunday in an interview on the ABC program "This Week," saying he was "proud" of the president's leadership on immigration and emphasizing cooperation with the administration on a former issue of serious contention, the treatment of American-held prisoners of war.

Aides said a thaw that began when Mr. McCain campaigned alongside Mr. Bush in the 2004 election has continued through the tougher days of Mr. Bush's second term. The appearances began after top aides for the two men met to hash out some of their differences. During private moments in joint appearances — at the White House, at campaignlike events pressing for immigration reform and on Air Force One — the two even chat about baseball and golf.

"He calls me Johnny Mac," Mr. McCain said.

Still, for all the talk of reconciliation, both sides describe the relationship between arguably the two highest-profile leaders of the Republican Party as almost entirely professional, a little stiff and the product of the pragmatic calculation by two politicians who see potential gain in striking a peace with a powerful rival.

"This is a very odd partnership that is almost founded at the moment on mutual need," said Tom Rath, a Republican leader in New Hampshire and a longtime ally of the Bush family, who hastened to add that Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain share more convictions than people realize and would not be working so closely if that were not the case.

But Mr. Bush has not had Mr. McCain to Camp David or the White House for dinner or a movie, and Mr. Bush has not visited Mr. McCain's cabin in Sedona, Ariz., since 2001. Mr. McCain, who served 22 years in the Navy, rises to his feet whenever he takes a call from Mr. Bush, even in the privacy of his office. But Mr. McCain's friends say he is fonder of Mr. Bush's father.

Even as he called Mr. Bush a friend, Mr. McCain described their relationship as a function of their positions and their shared views on such big issues as Iraq and immigration. "I believe if I were not in the Senate and not working on these issues, we might communicate once in a while, but not the way we do," he said. "We have a very good personal relationship, but it's primarily based on the agenda."

Mr. Bush is in need of a loyal Republican at a time when there is so much wariness within the party of a president whose popularity has declined. Mr. McCain would like the support of Mr. Bush's supporters and contributors in 2008 and could not afford to have a hostile White House that could trip up his own presidential bid.

Whatever the motivation, the relationship has potentially big political implications for the 2008 race, although Mr. Bush's aides have said that he would almost certainly stay out of the Republican primary contest. And some aides declined to comment publicly for this article out of concern, they said, that they would appear to be giving the White House stamp of approval for a McCain campaign. But the president appears to have stronger ties to Mr. McCain than to the other likely presidential candidates.

There has been a steady stream of Bush advisers who have ended up in Mr. McCain's orbit. Most recently, Republicans close to both candidates said that Nicolle Wallace — who just stepped down as Mr. Bush's communications director and has long been close to the president — was likely to serve in some formal or informal role in a McCain campaign. Her husband, Mark D. Wallace, Mr. Bush's deputy campaign manager in 2004 and now an ambassador-level representative to the United Nations, is already lending advice. In another high-profile move, Wayne L. Berman, a longtime supporter and fund-raiser for Mr. Bush, has signed on to help Mr. McCain.

On the other side of the divide, some of Mr. McCain's supporters made it clear in interviews that the McCain camp viewed Mr. Bush's brother Jeb, the governor of Florida, as an ideal running mate for Mr. McCain. This news would presumably be pleasing to President Bush, who has made it clear in recent weeks that he would like his brother to move onto the national stage; Governor Bush has made it just as clear that he has no interest in running for national office in 2008.

And Mr. Bush's senior political adviser, Karl Rove, was said by associates to have put aside his suspicion and dislike of Mr. McCain. The two spent time together during the 2004 campaign when, Mr. Rove told associates, they drew close. Mr. Rove gave Mr. McCain a pair of antique Theodore Roosevelt presidential cufflinks at the end of that race.

John Weaver, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain, said that accounts of animosity between Mr. McCain and Mr. Bush had been at least slightly exaggerated.

"There's heat in a campaign, and it can get pretty raw," said Mr. Weaver, who had a particularly famous feud with Mr. Rove. "I can speak for ourselves: after we lost the nominating process in 2000, it was time to move on. It took longer for some of us on the staff level to get to that point, but we did."

Still, it was just last year when Mr. McCain, a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, led something of a revolt in the Senate to push a ban on cruel or inhumane treatment of prisoners in American custody, over Mr. Bush's threat of a veto. And for much of Mr. Bush's first term, the senator had a reputation as one of the few Republicans who would publicly criticize the administration, on issues like Mr. Bush's tax cut proposals, the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal and the administration's postwar planning in Iraq.

But Mr. McCain has become one of the biggest defenders of Mr. Bush, even on some of the president's most unpopular moves, including the administration's decision this year to approve a deal giving control of several American ports to a company owned by the Dubai government.

"On a series of very tough issues, McCain's been there," said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary.

The jelling of the McCain-Bush relationship has included a series of gestures, some odd, on both sides. When Mr. McCain visited Mr. Bush at his ranch in Texas during the 2004 presidential campaign, he suggested to the president that he try cooking turkey with a turkey fryer, promising to rustle one up for him. Mr. McCain apparently forgot the promise until White House aides started calling Mr. McCain's office, saying the president was still waiting for his turkey fryer.

And aides said there were long memories in both camps stemming from the bitterly fought presidential primary season of 2000, in which Mr. McCain embarrassed Mr. Bush with a defeat in New Hampshire, and Mr. Bush responded with a searing campaign — which provoked charges of dirty tricks — that knocked Mr. McCain out in South Carolina.

A Republican with ties to the administration said there was lingering resentment among some Bush aides at Mr. McCain for so regularly going on television, especially during Mr. Bush's first term, to criticize the president. And Mr. McCain, a politician who is given to speaking his mind, could certainly still say something critical of the White House that would set back this rapprochement, his aides said.

But Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain have both instructed their aides to cease their hostilities. "We both made it very clear to all of our supporters that that's over," Mr. McCain said. "What people find difficulty understanding," he said, "is that we're capable of putting that behind us."

A New Partnership Binds Old Republican Rivals, NYT, 3.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/us/03mccain.html?hp&ex=1151985600&en=4413651bd6a4b111&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Steve Sack Minnesota, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune Cagle 30.6.2006
http://cagle.com/sack/

George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States

The Court Enters the War, Loudly

July 2, 2006
The New York Times
By ADAM LIPTAK

JOHN C. YOO, a principal architect of the Bush administration's legal response to the terrorist threat, sounded perplexed and a little bitter on Thursday afternoon. A few hours earlier, the Supreme Court had methodically dismantled the legal framework that he and a few other administration lawyers had built after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"What the court is doing is attempting to suppress creative thinking," said Professor Yoo, who now teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley. "The court has just declared that it's going to be very intrusive in the war on terror. They're saying, 'We're going to treat this more like the way we supervise the criminal justice system.' "

While in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003, Mr. Yoo helped write a series of memorandums setting out a bold and novel legal strategy to find, hold, question and punish the nation's enemies. The memorandums said the Geneva Conventions do not apply to people the administration designates as enemy combatants. They contemplated the use of highly coercive interrogation techniques. They justified secret surveillance.

The court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Professor Yoo said, may signal the collapse of the entire enterprise. "It could affect detention conditions, interrogation methods, the use of force," he said. "It could affect every aspect of the war on terror."

He was not overstating his case. True, the decision itself — holding that the government could not try detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for war crimes in a particular way — was narrow, given that it directly affected only 10 men and did not address the administration's broader contention that it can hold those men and hundreds of others without charges forever. And Congress may yet put some or all of the president's programs on firmer legal footing.

But the effect of the decision, constitutional lawyers across the political spectrum agreed, could devastate the administration's main legal justifications for its campaign against the terrorist threat.

"The mood music of this opinion so lacks the traditional deference to the president," said John O. McGinnis, who served in the Justice Department from 1987 to 1991 and now teaches law at Northwestern, "that it would seem to have implications for his other programs."

The administration had built its case in part on a vote by Congress, taken a week after Sept. 11, that authorized the president to "use all necessary and appropriate force" against those who participated in and supported the attacks. The administration has relied on that authorization as legal support for several of its programs.

In 2004, the Supreme Court endorsed a part of this argument, but Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority in Hamdan, was having none of it. There is, he said "nothing in the text or legislative history" of the authorization "even hinting that Congress intended to expand or alter" existing laws concerning military trials.

The opinion, Professor Yoo said, seemed to require Congress to specify a laundry list of powers before the president can act.

"I worked on the authorization," he added. "We wrote it as broadly as possible. In past wars, the court used to let the president and Congress figure out how to wage the war. That's very different from what's happening today. The court said, 'If you want to do anything, you have to be very specific and precise about it.' "

The logic of the ruling and its requirement that Congress directly authorize presidential actions even in wartime has broad implications. For one thing, said Laurence H. Tribe, a law professor at Harvard, it seems to destroy the administration's argument that Congress blessed the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program when it voted for the authorization.

"That argument is blown out of the water and is obliterated," Professor Tribe said.

Justice Stevens also took aim at the administration's chief constitutional argument, the one that critics call "Article II on steroids."

Because Article II of the Constitution, among other things, anoints the president as commander in chief, Professor Yoo and other administration lawyers have argued the president can ignore or override laws that seem to limit his authority to conduct war. In the current struggle against terrorism, they argue, the entire world is the battlefield.

Perhaps not any more. Steven G. Calabresi, a law professor at Northwestern and a founder of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, said this second argument is also in trouble.

"The court is certainly not embracing the broader Article II power," he said.

Indeed, a footnote in the majority opinion, one sure to be read closely, seems tailored to address these other controversies by rejecting the argument that the president is free to ignore Congressional limitations on his power.

"Conceivably the court had in mind controversies like the N.S.A. terrorist surveillance program" in crafting the footnote, said Curtis A. Bradley, a former Bush administration lawyer who now teaches law at Duke.

There are supporters of the N.S.A. program who say that the Hamdan decision does not affect it. They note that a 2002 appeals court decision said that Congress "could not encroach on the president's constitutional power" to conduct warrantless surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence.

The wholesale rejection of the administration's positions in Hamdan may have its roots in part in judicial hostility toward the memorandums Professor Yoo helped prepare several years ago. The justices in the majority, said Professor McGinnis, "have been so skeptical of a variety of legal interpretations coming out of the executive branch, like the so-called torture memos, that they are not giving the president any deference."

But some justices seemed to leave a door open, suggesting that the decision is not so much a judicial attack on executive power as it is an insistence that Congress, rather than a small group of administration lawyers, must play a leading role in formulating the response to terror.

"Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress," Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in a brief concurrence that three other justices joined, "judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our nation's ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the nation's ability to determine — through democratic means — how best to do so."

But Professor Yoo was not inclined to accept the decision as a triumph of the democratic process. Instead, he saw it as a judicial usurpation of the president's power to protect the nation. "The court is saying we're going to be a player now," he observed ruefully.

The Court Enters the War, Loudly, NYT, 2.7.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/weekinreview/02liptak.html

Behind Bush's Fury, a Vow Made in 2001

June 29, 2006
The New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, June 28 — Ever since President Bush vowed days after the Sept. 11 attacks to "follow the money as a trail to the terrorists," the government has made no secret of its efforts to hunt down the bank accounts of Al Qaeda and its allies.

But that fact has not muted the fury of Mr. Bush, his top aides and many members of Congress at the decision last week by The New York Times and other newspapers to disclose a centerpiece of that hunt: the Treasury Department's search for clues in a vast database of financial transactions maintained by a Belgium-based banking consortium known as Swift.

Speaking at a fund-raising event in St. Louis for Senator Jim Talent, Mr. Bush made the news reports his central theme.

"This program has been a vital tool in the war on terror," Mr. Bush said. "Last week the details of this program appeared in the press."

Mr. Bush received a prolonged, standing ovation from the Republican crowd when he added, "There can be no excuse for anyone entrusted with vital intelligence to leak it — and no excuse for any newspaper to print it."

On Thursday, the House is expected to take up a Republican resolution supporting the tracking of financial transactions and condemning the publication of the existence of the program and details of how it works. The resolution says Congress "expects the cooperation of all news media organizations in protecting the lives of Americans and the capability of the government to identify, disrupt and capture terrorists by not disclosing classified intelligence programs." Democrats are proposing a variant that expresses support for the treasury program but omits the language about the news media.

The director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, has ordered an assessment of any damage to counterterrorism efforts from the disclosures, but the review is expected to take months, and its findings are likely to remain classified.

Experts on terror financing are divided in their views of the impact of the revelations. Some say the harm in last week's publications in The Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal may have been less in tipping off terrorists than in putting publicity-shy bankers in an uncomfortable spotlight.

"I would be surprised if terrorists didn't know that we were doing everything we can to track their financial transactions, since the administration has been very vocal about that fact," said William F. Wechsler, a former Treasury and National Security Council official who specialized in tracking terrorism financing.

But Mr. Wechsler said the disclosure might nonetheless hamper intelligence collection by making financial institutions resistant to requests for access to records.

"I wouldn't be surprised if these recent articles have made it more difficult to get cooperation from our friends in Europe, since it may make their cooperation with the U.S. less politically palatable," Mr. Wechsler said.

Though privacy advocates have denounced the examination of banking transactions, the Swift consortium has defended its cooperation with the counterterrorism program and has not indicated any intention to stop cooperating with the broad administrative subpoenas issued to obtain its data.

A former federal prosecutor who handled major terrorism cases, Andrew C. McCarthy, said he believed that the greatest harm from news reports about such classified programs was the message that Americans could not keep secrets.

"If foreign intelligence services think anything they tell us will end up in the newspapers, they'll stop sharing so much information," said Mr. McCarthy, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington.

Mr. McCarthy said he thought the Swift disclosure might encourage terrorist plotters to stop moving money through the banking system, depriving the United States and its allies of a valuable window on their activities. "Methods they assumed were safe they now know are not so safe," he said.

But Bob Kerrey, a member of the 9/11 commission and former Democratic senator from Nebraska, took a different view, saying that if the news reports drive terrorists out of the banking system, that could actually help the counterterrorism cause.

"If we tell people who are potential criminals that we have a lot of police on the beat, that's a substantial deterrent," said Mr. Kerrey, now president of New School University. If terrorists decide it is too risky to move money through official channels, "that's very good, because it's much, much harder to move money in other ways," Mr. Kerrey said.

A State Department official, Anthony Wayne, made a parallel point in 2004 before Congress. "As we've made it more difficult for them to use the banking system," Mr. Wayne said, "they've been shifting to other less reliable and more cumbersome methods, such as cash couriers."

As such testimony suggests, government agencies have often trumpeted their successes in tracking terrorist funding. President Bush set the tone on Sept. 24, 2001, declaring, "We're putting banks and financial institutions around the world on notice — we will work with their governments, ask them to freeze or block terrorists' ability to access funds in foreign accounts."

Since then, the Treasury Department has produced dozens of news releases and public reports detailing its efforts. Though officials appear never to have mentioned the Swift program, they have repeatedly described their cooperation with financial networks to identify accounts held by people and organizations linked to terrorism.

Working with "our allies abroad and our partners in the private sector," an April news release said, "Treasury follows the terrorists' money trails aggressively, exploiting them for intelligence."

Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, convened a hearing in 2004 where Treasury officials described at length their efforts, assisted by financial institutions, to trace terrorists' money. But he has been among the most vehement critics of the disclosures about the Swift program, saying editors and reporters of The New York Times should be imprisoned for publishing government secrets.

In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. King said he saw no contradiction. "Obviously we wanted the terrorists to know we were trying to track them," Mr. King said. "But we didn't want them to know the details."

Behind Bush's Fury, a Vow Made in 2001, NYT, 29.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/29/washington/29intel.html

President to Press for Line-Item Veto Power

June 28, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, June 27 — With his proposed overhaul of the nation's immigration laws now in legislative limbo, President Bush focused on another priority on Tuesday, to secure Congressional approval of a presidential line-item veto.

Speaking to a conservative group here in the morning, Mr. Bush said he would use a line-item veto to eliminate spending on the pet projects called earmarks that lawmakers attach to spending bills.

"A line-item veto would be a vital tool that a president could use to target spending that lawmakers tack on to the large spending bills," Mr. Bush said before a gathering held by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative group that advocates fiscal restraint.

The president said he very much needed the power to control spending. The number of earmarks each year has grown to 13,000 per budget from 3,000 over the last decade, he said.

Mr. Bush also met on Tuesday at the White House with senators to discuss his proposal, including the majority leader, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, and the president's 2000 Republican primary rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona. In his address, Mr. Bush also cited a more recent rival from the other side of the aisle, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, as a supporter of a line-item veto.

"I remember campaigning against him in 2004, and I remember him talking about the line-item veto," Mr. Bush said of Mr. Kerry, "and I appreciate the fact that he's living up to the political promises he made."

Mr. Bush urged Mr. Kerry's Democratic colleagues to approve the veto just as they had done in 1996 for the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Mr. Clinton's success in obtaining line-item veto power, delivered with help from Congressional Republicans, was a victory in a decades-long struggle by the executive branch to gain a stronger hand in budget negotiations with Congress.

But the Supreme Court struck that line-item veto down in 1998, ruling that it allowed a president "to effect the repeal of laws, for his own policy reasons."

Administration officials say the form of the veto sought by Mr. Bush would stand up to constitutional scrutiny by creating a process in which the president proposes items to strike but Congress ultimately decides whether to go along with him in a fast-tracked vote. The House passed a version of the veto with such a process last week.

Mr. Frist has told administration officials he will try to bring a similar version of the bill to a vote in mid-July. But even White House officials acknowledged that the proposal would face a tough fight. Democrats have been reluctant to give the president any sort of victory, and lawmakers in charge of the Senate Appropriations Committee are not eager to cede any control.

Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire and chairman of the Appropriations Committee, is pushing a version of the bill that would allow the president to strike no more than four items in a year. In addition, a core group of lawmakers is highly protective of Congressional power in general, but especially with Mr. Bush in the White House. His office has been open in its efforts to build executive power.

Winning a line-item veto would give Mr. Bush a much-needed Congressional victory. He had been trying to push through new immigration laws, but last week the House decided to have a series of national hearings before taking action. Mr. Bush said Tuesday that he was not giving up on that fight.

But he said that in the meantime he had asked his new budget director, Rob Portman, to make securing the line-item veto a top priority. Mr. Portman, a former Republican congressman with strong ties on Capitol Hill, has discussed the veto with lawmakers in the last week. "It's important that the Republican Party continue to let people know that the Republicans are the party of fiscal discipline," Mr. Portman said, adding that he was also trying to bring along Democrats.

But Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said his boss was working to gather enough votes to defeat the line-item veto. "It's a significant shift in authority to the executive branch," Mr. Manley said.

President to Press for Line-Item Veto Power, NYT, 28.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/washington/28bush.html

Bush's Use of Authority Riles Senator

June 28, 2006
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE

WASHINGTON, June 27 — Senators on the Judiciary Committee accused President Bush of an "unprecedented" and "astonishing" power grab on Tuesday for making use of a device that gave him the authority to revise or ignore more than 750 laws enacted since he became president.

By using what are known as signing statements, memorandums issued with legislation as he signs it, the president has reserved the right to not enforce any laws he thinks violate the Constitution or national security, or that impair foreign relations.

A lawyer for the White House said that Mr. Bush was only doing his duty to uphold the Constitution. But Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, characterized the president's actions as a declaration that he "will do as he pleases," without regard to the laws passed by Congress.

"There's a real issue here as to whether the president may, in effect, cherry-pick the provisions he likes and exclude the ones he doesn't like," Mr. Specter said at a hearing.

"Wouldn't it be better, as a matter of comity," he said, "for the president to have come to the Congress and said, 'I'd like to have this in the bill; I'd like to have these exceptions in the bill,' so that we could have considered that?"

Mr. Specter and others are particularly upset that Mr. Bush reserved the right to interpret the torture ban passed overwhelmingly by Congress, as well as Congressional oversight powers in the renewal of the Patriot Act.

Michelle Boardman, a deputy assistant attorney general, said the statements were "not an abuse of power."

Rather, Ms. Boardman said, the president has the responsibility to make sure the Constitution is upheld. He uses signing statements, she argued, to "save" statutes from being found unconstitutional. And he reserves the right, she said, only to raise questions about a law "that could in some unknown future application" be declared unconstitutional.

"It is often not at all the situation that the president doesn't intend to enact the bill," Ms. Boardman said.

The fight over signing statements is part of a continuing battle between Congress and the White House. Mr. Specter and many Democrats have raised objections to the administration's wiretapping of phones without warrants from the court set up to oversee surveillance.

Last month, Mr. Specter accused Vice President Dick Cheney of going behind his back to avoid the Judiciary Committee's oversight of surveillance programs.

"Where will it end?" asked Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. "Where does it stop?"

The bills Mr. Bush has reserved the right to revise or ignore include provisions that govern affirmative action programs, protect corporate whistle-blowers, require executive agencies to collect certain statistics, and establish qualifications for executive appointees.

Senators and two law professors before the panel said that if the president objected to a bill, he should use his power to veto it — something he has not done in his six years in office.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said the expansion of executive power would be the "lasting legacy" of the Bush administration. "This new use of signing statements is a means to undermine and weaken the law," she said.

What the president is saying, she added, is "Congress, what you do isn't really important; I'm going to do what I want to do."

Ms. Boardman said the president had inserted 110 statements, which senators said applied to 750 statutes, compared with 30 by President Jimmy Carter. The number has increased, she said, but only marginally, and only because national security concerns have increased since the attacks of Sept. 11 and more laws have been passed. She acknowledged that the increase might be construed as "a lack of good communication" with Congress.

But Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said the committee was making too much of the statements. "It is precedented," he said, "and it's not new."

Senators said they had been expecting a higher-ranking official from the office of legal policy, and Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the committee, chastised the White House for not sending "anybody who would have authority to speak on this."

"But then, considering the fact that they're using basically an extra-constitutional, extra-judicial step to enhance the power of the president, it's not unusual," he said.

Bush's Use of Authority Riles Senator, NYT, 28.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/28/washington/28sign.html

Bush Says Report on Bank Data Was Disgraceful

June 27, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, June 26 — President Bush on Monday condemned as "disgraceful" the disclosure last week by The New York Times and other newspapers of a secret program to investigate and track terrorists that relies on a vast international database that includes Americans' banking transactions.

The remarks were the first in public by Mr. Bush on the issue, and they came as the administration intensified its attacks on newspapers' handling of it. In a speech in Nebraska on Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly criticized The Times by name, while Treasury Secretary John W. Snow dismissed as "incorrect and offensive" the rationale offered by the newspaper's executive editor for the decision to publish.

"Congress was briefed," Mr. Bush said. "And what we did was fully authorized under the law. And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America."

The New York Times, followed by The Wall Street Journal and The Los Angeles Times, began publishing accounts of the program on Thursday evening.

In his remarks during a brief photo session in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Mr. Bush appeared irritated, at times leaning forward for emphasis, though he did not mention any newspaper by name.

Mr. Cheney, who had earlier said he was offended by news accounts of the financial tracking program, on Monday went a step further, singling out The Times for criticism in a separate appearance at a fundraising luncheon for a Republican candidate for Congress, Adrian Smith, in Grand Island, Neb.

"Some in the press, in particular The New York Times, have made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult by insisting on publishing detailed information about vital national security programs," the vice president said, adding that the program provides "valuable intelligence" and has been "successful in helping break up terrorist plots."

The executive editor of The Times, Bill Keller, said in an e-mail statement on Monday evening that the decision to publish had been "a hard call." But Mr. Keller noted that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has "embarked on a number of broad, secret programs aimed at combating terrorism, often without seeking new legal authority or submitting to the usual oversight."

He added, "I think it would be arrogant for us to pre-empt the work of Congress and the courts by deciding these programs are perfectly legal and abuse-proof, based entirely on the word of the government."

Representative Peter King, Republican of New York and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, released a letter on Monday in which he called on the attorney general to investigate whether The Times's decision to publish the article violated the Espionage Act.

In a television interview on Sunday, Mr. King described the disclosure as "absolutely disgraceful" and said he believed that the newspaper's action had violated the statute.

In Nebraska on Monday, Mr. Cheney reminded his audience that The Times had also disclosed the National Security Agency's secret program of monitoring international communications of suspected terrorists without court warrants. Mr. Cheney said it was "doubly disturbing" that The Times printed the article and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, journalism's highest honor, for it.

"I think that is a disgrace," he said.

Administration officials had argued strongly that in reporting on the financial tracking operation, The Times would endanger national security by prompting the Belgian banking consortium that maintains the financial data to withdraw from the program. On Sunday, Mr. Keller, the paper's executive editor, posted a letter on The New York Times Web site saying that the newspaper "found this argument puzzling," partly because the banking consortium is compelled by subpoena to comply.

Treasury officials did not seek individual court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of records from the cooperative, known as Swift.

Mr. Keller said in the letter that the administration had made a "secondary argument" that publication of the article would lead terrorists to change tactics, but he said that argument had been made "in a halfhearted way."

Mr. Snow, the Treasury secretary, challenged that view in strong terms in a letter to Mr. Keller, saying, "Nothing could be further from the truth." Mr. Snow said that he and other high-level officials, including Democrats, had made "repeated pleas" in an effort to dissuade The Times from publication. The letter was made public by the Treasury in a news release on Monday evening.

In explaining the newspaper's rationale for publication, Mr. Keller also wrote that it was not the newspaper's job "to pass judgment on whether this program is legal or effective" — an explanation that drew pointed criticism from Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, during a televised briefing on Monday.

Mr. Snow, who is not related to the Treasury secretary, said journalists made such judgments all the time, and accused The Times of endangering lives and departing from what he said was a longstanding tradition by news organizations of keeping government secrets during wartime.

"Traditionally in this country in a time of war, members of the press have acknowledged that the commander in chief, in the exercise of his powers, sometimes has to do things secretly in order to protect the public," Mr. Snow said. "This is a highly unusual departure."

Mr. Snow said there was no coordinated effort by the White House to ratchet up pressure on journalists, or The Times in particular. But he said the president seemed eager to have a chance to express his views about the issue, and decided at the last minute to take reporters' questions at Monday's photo session, after a meeting with supporters of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"If you want to figure out what the terrorists are doing, you try to follow their money," the president said. "And that's exactly what we're doing. And the fact that a newspaper disclosed it makes it harder to win this war on terror."

On Capitol Hill, the financial-tracking program itself has not generated much criticism, even from Democrats, since its existence was disclosed. A spokesman for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said Mr. Reid was briefed on the program several weeks ago and had concluded that "it does not appear to be based on the same shaky and discredited legal analysis the vice president and his allies invoked to underpin the N.S.A. domestic spying program."

An exception has been Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has made privacy a signature issue and who said in an interview Monday that the Bush administration was adopting a strategy of "shoot the messenger" in trying to avoid Congressional oversight of the financial tracking program.

"There are very serious constitutional and legal questions that have been raised," Mr. Markey said, "and they're being obscured by this almost ad hominem attack on The New York Times."

Administration officials have held classified briefings about the banking program for some members of Congress and the Sept. 11 commission, intelligence and law enforcement officials said, and more lawmakers were briefed after the administration learned that The Times was making inquiries for an article about the program.

Bush Says Report on Bank Data Was Disgraceful, NYT, 27.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/washington/27prexy.html?hp&ex=1151467200&en=c7ba8eb83c747ae1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush, Facing Skeptics in Europe, Defends His Iraq Policy

June 22, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

VIENNA, June 21 — President Bush, visiting this Central European city with the aim of promoting trans-Atlantic unity, instead issued an impassioned defense of his Iraq policy on Wednesday amid pointed reminders of how far the United States has fallen in the eyes of many Europeans.

"That's absurd!" Mr. Bush declared, dismissing a European reporter's suggestion that most Europeans regard the United States as a bigger threat to global stability than North Korea, which has proclaimed it has nuclear arms, and Iran, which is suspected of developing them.

"Look, people didn't agree with my decision on Iraq, and I understand that," he continued, clearly irritated, when another reporter asked about a poll showing European discontent with his policies. "For Europe, September the 11th was a moment; for us, it was a change of thinking."

Mr. Bush's heated exchange with European reporters — under the glittering chandeliers of the marble-columned throne room in the Hofburg Palace, once the imperial home of the Hapsburgs — followed a meeting of Mr. Bush and leaders of the European Union. They discussed issues that included the nuclear tensions with North Korea and Iran, a faltering world trade pact and demands by the Europeans for the United States to close the detainee center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Few, if any, decisions were reached. Mr. Bush described the so-called Doha trade negotiations, which are stalled over the issue of agricultural subsidies, as "tough work" and said, as he has before, that he would not close Guantánamo. That issue threatened to overshadow the meeting, so much so that Mr. Bush initiated discussion on it during his session with Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel of Austria, the European Union president, and José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, the European Union's governing body.

"He didn't wait that we raise the question," Mr. Schüssel said at the news conference, standing with Mr. Barroso alongside Mr. Bush. "He came up and said, 'Look, this is my problem, this is where we are.' "

The meeting came at a delicate moment for the White House on Iraq. After two weeks of trying to capitalize on the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Bush administration is now faced with the ugly news of the capture, torture and killing of two American soldiers in Iraq. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are engaged in an intense debate over whether to set a timetable for the withdrawal of troops.

Against this backdrop, the White House is pursuing an aggressive strategy of embracing the war, believing it is better to confront Americans' unease about Iraq than to let it fester. In a sense, then, the president's defiant stance on Iraq in Europe simply echoed the course he is pursuing at home.

Mr. Bush's arrival here was greeted with largely peaceful protests. His remarks on the war were not very different than what he had said before. But the vigor of his defense, coming at a time when he is trying to repair frayed relations with Europeans and has joined them in trying to negotiate a peaceful end to Iran's nuclear program, underscored how fragile those relations remain.

At one point, Mr. Schüssel stepped in to defend Mr. Bush, recalling his own boyhood in post-World War II Vienna, when the city lay in ruins and Americans offered food and aid. "Without America, what fate would have Europe?" he said, adding, "I think we should be fair from the other side of the Atlantic."

Though the official agenda for the European meeting was centered on terrorism, energy and trade, Iran and North Korea loomed large over the talks. On North Korea, Mr. Bush sidestepped a question about how the United States might respond to a missile test. He said simply, "The North Koreans have made agreements with us in the past, and we expect them to keep their agreements."

John R. Bolton, the American ambassador to the United Nations, on Wednesday rejected what appeared to be an offer from North Korea to discuss its preparations for a missile test, Reuters reported. "It's not a way to produce a conversation," he said, "because if you acquiesce in aberrant behavior you simply encourage the repetition of it, which we're obviously not going to do."

Mr. Bolton also told CNN that China should do more to persuade North Korea not to test its missile.

Wednesday's meeting here reflected what Ivo H. Daalder, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution, called Mr. Bush's "delicate minuet" with Europe.

A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization in Washington, found that most people surveyed in 10 of 14 foreign countries said the war in Iraq had made the world more dangerous. In France, 36 percent of those surveyed cited American involvement in Iraq as a threat to world peace, as opposed to 31 percent citing Iran and 16 percent citing North Korea.

Despite the numbers, analysts say, tensions have been easing since Mr. Bush's last trip to Europe, in 2005. Now, as he emphasizes a peaceful resolution in Iran, foreign policy experts say he has improved his credibility with European governments, if not the European people.

"I don't think Europeans are ever going to learn to love George Bush," said Mark Leonard, director of foreign policy at the Center for European Reform, a research institution in London. But, he said, "I think there has been a remarkable honeymoon between governments."

That honeymoon does not extend to the local press. On Tuesday, anticipating Mr. Bush's arrival, an Austrian commentator, Hans Rauscher, offered a brutal assessment of Mr. Bush in the newspaper Der Standard, calling him "probably the worst president of the past 100 years."

But Mr. Bush fought back, citing American aid to Africa to fight the AIDS epidemic and his declaration of genocide in Darfur as examples of American compassion.

"I will do my best to explain our foreign policy," he said. "On the one hand, it's tough when it needs to be; on the other hand, it's compassionate. And we'll let the polls figure out — people can say what they want to say."

Bush, Facing Skeptics in Europe, Defends His Iraq Policy, NYT, 22.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/world/europe/22prexy.html

Books of The Times | 'The One Percent Doctrine'

Personality, Ideology and Bush's Terror Wars

June 20, 2006
The New York Times
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

The title of Ron Suskind's riveting new book, "The One Percent Doctrine," refers to an operating principle that he says Vice President Dick Cheney articulated shortly after 9/11: in Mr. Suskind's words, "if there was even a 1 percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction — and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time — the United States must now act as if it were a certainty." He quotes Mr. Cheney saying that it's not about "our analysis," it's about "our response," and argues that this conviction effectively sidelines the traditional policymaking process of analysis and debate, making suspicion, not evidence, the new threshold for action.

Mr. Suskind's book — which appears to have been written with wide access to the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, as well as to other C.I.A. officials and a host of sources at the F.B.I., and in the State, Defense and Treasury Departments — is sure to be as talked about as his "Price of Loyalty" (2004) and the former counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke's "Against All Enemies" (2004).

The book, which focuses on the 2001 to 2004 period, not only sheds new light on the Bush White House's strategic thinking and its doctrine of pre-emptive action, but also underscores the roles that personality and ideology played in shaping the administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. It describes how poorly prepared homeland security was (and is) for another terrorist attack, and looks at a series of episodes in the war on terror that often found the "invisibles," who run intelligence and enforcement operations on the ground, at odds with the "notables," who head the government.

In fleshing out key relationships among administration members — most notably, between Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush, Mr. Bush and Mr. Tenet, and Mr. Tenet and Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser — it adds some big, revealing chunks to the evolving jigsaw-puzzle portrait of this White House and its modus operandi, while also giving the reader some up close and personal looks at the government's day-to-day operations in the war on terror.

In "The One Percent Doctrine," Mr. Suskind discloses that First Data Corporation — one of the world's largest processors of credit card transactions and the parent company of Western Union — began cooperating with the F.B.I. in the wake of 9/11, providing information on financial transactions and wire transfers from around the world. The huge data-gathering operation in some respects complemented the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program (secretly authorized by Mr. Bush months after the Sept. 11 attacks), which monitored specific conversations as well as combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might lead to terrorism suspects.

Despite initial misgivings on the part of Western Union executives, Mr. Suskind reports, the company also worked with the C.I.A. and provided real-time information on financial transactions as they occurred.

Mr. Suskind's book also reveals that Qaeda operatives had designed a delivery system (which they called a "mubtakkar") for a lethal gas, and that the United States government had a Qaeda source who said that plans for a hydrogen cyanide attack on New York City's subway system were well under way in early 2003, but the attack was called off — for reasons that remain unclear — by Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The book also reports that Al Qaeda had produced "extremely virulent" anthrax in Afghanistan before 9/11, which "could be easily reproduced to create a quantity that could be readily weaponized."

Just as disturbing as Al Qaeda's plans and capabilities are the descriptions of the Bush administration's handling of the war on terror and its willful determination to go to war against Iraq. That war, according to the author's sources who attended National Security Council briefings in 2002, was primarily waged "to make an example" of Saddam Hussein, to "create a demonstration model to guide the behavior of anyone with the temerity to acquire destructive weapons or, in any way, flout the authority of the United States."

"The One Percent Doctrine" amplifies an emerging portrait of the administration (depicted in a flurry of recent books by authors as disparate as the Reagan administration economist Bruce Bartlett and the former Coalition Provisional Authority adviser Larry Diamond) as one eager to circumvent traditional processes of policy development and policy review, and determined to use experts (whether in the C.I.A., the Treasury Department or the military) not to help formulate policy, but simply to sell predetermined initiatives to the American public.

Mr. Suskind writes that the war on terror gave the president and vice president "vast, creative prerogatives": "to do what they want, when they want to, for whatever reason they decide" and to "create whatever reality was convenient." The potent wartime authority granted the White House in the wake of 9/11, he says, dovetailed with the administration's pre-9/11 desire to amp up executive power (diminished, Mr. Cheney and others believed, by Watergate) and to impose "message discipline" on government staffers.

"The public, and Congress, acquiesced," Mr. Suskind notes, "with little real resistance, to a 'need to know' status — told only what they needed to know, with that determination made exclusively, and narrowly, by the White House."

Within the government, he goes on, there was frequent frustration with the White House's hermetic decision-making style. "Voicing desire for a more traditional, transparent policy process," he writes, "prompted accusations of disloyalty," and "issues argued, often vociferously, at the level of deputies and principals rarely seemed to go upstream in their fullest form to the president's desk, and if they did, it was often after Bush seemed to have already made up his mind based on what was so often cited as his 'instinct' or 'gut.' "

This book augments the portrait of Mr. Bush as an incurious and curiously uninformed executive that Mr. Suskind earlier set out in "The Price of Loyalty" and in a series of magazine articles on the president and key aides. In "The One Percent Doctrine," he writes that Mr. Cheney's nickname inside the C.I.A. was Edgar (as in Edgar Bergen), casting Mr. Bush in the puppet role of Charlie McCarthy, and cites one instance after another in which the president was not fully briefed (or had failed to read the basic paperwork) about a crucial situation.

During a November 2001 session with the president, Mr. Suskind recounts, a C.I.A. briefer realized that the Pentagon had not told Mr. Bush of the C.I.A.'s urgent concern that Osama bin Laden might escape from the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan (as he indeed later did) if United States reinforcements were not promptly sent in. And several months later, he says, attendees at a meeting between Mr. Bush and the Saudis discovered after the fact that an important packet laying out the Saudis' views about the Israeli-Palestinian situation had been diverted to the vice president's office and never reached the president.

Keeping information away from the president, Mr. Suskind argues, was a calculated White House strategy that gave Mr. Bush "plausible deniability" from Mr. Cheney's point of view, and that perfectly meshed with the commander in chief's own impatience with policy details. Suggesting that Mr. Bush deliberately did not read the full National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was delivered to the White House in the fall of 2002, Mr. Suskind writes: "Keeping certain knowledge from Bush — much of it shrouded, as well, by classification — meant that the president, whose each word circles the globe, could advance various strategies by saying whatever was needed. He could essentially be 'deniable' about his own statements."

"Whether Cheney's innovations were tailored to match Bush's inclinations, or vice versa, is almost immaterial," Mr. Suskind continues. "It was a firm fit. Under this strategic model, reading the entire N.I.E. would be problematic for Bush: it could hem in the president's rhetoric, a key weapon in the march to war. He would know too much."

As for Mr. Tenet, this book provides a nuanced portrait of a man with "colliding loyalties — to the president, who could have fired him after 9/11 but didn't; and to his analysts, whom he was institutionally and emotionally committed to defend." It would become an increasingly untenable position, as the White House grew more and more impatient with the C.I.A.'s reluctance to supply readily the sort of intelligence it wanted. (A Pentagon unit headed by Douglas Feith was set up as an alternative to the C.I.A., to provide, in Mr. Suskind's words, "intelligence on demand" to both Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the office of the vice president.)

While many C.I.A. analysts were deeply skeptical of the imminent danger posed by Mr. Hussein and simultaneously worried about the fallout of a possible invasion, the C.I.A., paradoxically enough, would become a favorite scapegoat for the administration's decision to go to war against Iraq, thanks in no small measure to Mr. Tenet's remark (quoted in Bob Woodward's 2004 book "Plan of Attack") that the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was a "slam dunk." In this volume Mr. Suskind reports that Mr. Tenet says he does not remember uttering those famous words: "Doesn't dispute it. Just doesn't remember it."

Mr. Suskind credits Mr. Tenet with deftly using his personal bonds with "key conditional partners" in the war on terror, from President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. He depicts the former C.I.A. director as frequently being made by the White House "to take the fall" for his superiors, on matters including the administration's handling of prewar intelligence to the 16 disputed words in the president's State of the Union address, regarding Iraq's supposed efforts to obtain uranium from Africa. Because it was Mr. Tenet "who brought analysis up the chain from the C.I.A.," Mr. Suskind writes, he "was best positioned to assume blame. And Rice was adept at laying it on Tenet."

At the same time, Mr. Suskind suggests that Mr. Tenet acted as a kind of White House enabler: he writes that in the wake of 9/11, Mr. Tenet felt a "mix of insecurity and gratitude" vis-à-vis George W. Bush, and that eager to please his boss, he repeatedly pushed C.I.A. staff members to come up with evidence that might support the president's public statements.

In the days after 9/11 Mr. Bush defended the embattled C.I.A. chief to angry congressmen, and at that point, Mr. Suskind writes: "George Tenet would do anything his President asked. Anything. And George W. Bush knew it."

Personality, Ideology and Bush's Terror Wars, NYT, 20.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/books/20kaku.html

Bush Says Clearing of Rove Was a Relief

June 15, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG and NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON, June 14 — President Bush said on Wednesday that he "took a sigh of relief" when federal prosecutors decided this week not to indict Karl Rove, his top strategist, in the C.I.A. leak case.

But Mr. Bush, speaking with reporters in the Rose Garden, still faced tough questions about the investigation. One journalist asked if the president believed that Mr. Rove owed any apologies for providing "misleading" statements about his role in the case. Another asked, "Do you have any work to do to rebuild credibility that might have been lost?"

Mr. Bush voiced full support for Mr. Rove, but otherwise declined to go into the details of the investigation, saying, "There's an ongoing trial; it's a serious business."

Certainly the decision by the lead prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, not to indict Mr. Rove is a major break for the administration, cutting off an avenue of investigation that had come close to the Oval Office. But questions remain about how straightforward Mr. Rove, a deputy chief of staff, was about his own role in administration efforts to rebut a war critic — even with his own White House colleagues.

And there is still a trial looming for Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., who is accused of lying to federal investigators who were trying to find out whether the White House intentionally disclosed the name of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson, in an effort to undermine a war critic, her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

In a New York Times Op-Ed article in 2003, Mr. Wilson reported that during a fact-finding mission for the C.I.A. he could not verify claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa, a major administration claim in justifying the invasion of Iraq.

White House allies have rallied to Mr. Libby's side, setting up a defense fund to help defray his legal costs. The list of advisers to the group includes major supporters and former officials, like Spencer Abraham, the former energy secretary, and Mary Matalin, a longtime Cheney adviser.

Central to Mr. Libby's defense is his argument that any efforts to push back against Mr. Wilson were legitimate.

In a series of court filings in that case, Mr. Fitzgerald has indicated he may call Mr. Cheney as a witness.

A Republican who is close to several administration officials, and who was granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking at the White House, said the White House was troubled that the Libby trial, which is scheduled to begin in January, has the potential to expose some of the inner workings of the vice president's office.

"There's not concern about showing any illegalities as much as there is a window into the policy process that will be unflattering to the vice president," this person said.

Mr. Fitzgerald has already filed papers discussing a copy of The Times's Op-Ed article that includes handwritten notations from Mr. Cheney in the margins, including one that said: "Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

Yet for all that, the case against Mr. Libby has been constricted in ways that are said to be helping officials sleep better at night.

The presiding judge, Reggie B. Walton, has narrowed the issues in the trial to whether Mr. Libby lied under oath to a grand jury and F.B.I. agents about his role in the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's status at the C.I.A. Judge Walton has mostly slammed the door on efforts by Mr. Libby's lawyers' to broaden the trial into an exploration of how the Bush administration dealt with criticism of its decision to go to war in Iraq.

Judge Walton's rulings make it unlikely that if vice president were to testify, he would be asked to comment beyond some simple and straightforward facts, notably whether he informed Mr. Libby of Ms. Wilson's role in her husband's trip.

Mr. Libby is charged with lying when he testified that he first learned of Ms. Wilson's identity in a conversation with Tim Russert, the Washington bureau chief of NBC News. Mr. Russert has said that testimony is false. In 2003 Scott McClellan, who was then White House press secretary, told reporters, based on information from Mr. Rove, that Mr. Rove had played no role in disclosing Ms. Wilson's name.

Mr. Rove later admitted to speaking with two reporters, the columnist Robert Novak and Matt Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, about Ms. Wilson, though associates say he did not know her name. Mr. Rove also initially did not disclose to a grand jury that he had spoken with Mr. Cooper; he said in later testimony that he had forgotten and was reminded by the discovery of an e-mail message he had sent to a White House official recounting the conversation with Mr. Cooper.

An associate of Mr. Rove who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not cleared to speak publicly on the details said Mr. Rove did not intentionally mislead Mr. McClellan.

On Wednesday Mr. Bush was asked what he thought of Mr. Rove's behavior.

"I trust Karl Rove," Mr. Bush said, "and he's an integral part of my team."

Bush Says Clearing of Rove Was a Relief, NYT, 15.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/washington/15leak.html

Adviser Who Shaped Bush's Speeches Is Leaving

June 15, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, June 14 — Michael Gerson, the White House speechwriter and policy adviser who shaped nearly every major address of George W. Bush's presidency, said Wednesday that he was leaving the administration to pursue new career options.

Mr. Gerson has been one of Mr. Bush's closest aides and is credited with giving voice to both the "compassionate conservatism" that Mr. Bush espouses and his more hawkish lines, like "axis of evil."

Mr. Gerson follows two other close Bush advisers who have left in recent weeks: Andrew H. Card Jr., the former White House chief of staff, and Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary.

But officials said Mr. Gerson's departure was not part of the staff shakeup instigated by Mr. Card's successor, Joshua B. Bolten, who has tried to invigorate and re-energize Mr. Bush's staff with new faces.

Mr. Gerson, 42, who has worked for Mr. Bush for seven years, said he had been contemplating leaving the administration for some time. Mr. Gerson, who had a heart attack when he was 40, said he told the president four months ago that he was serious about leaving soon. He said he chose now in part because the White House is having a run of good news and the time seemed right. "This was a case where many good things are coming together at the White House," he said. "And it to some extent makes it easier to leave." He said he plans to continue a career in writing.

White House officials said there were no plans to name a successor to Mr. Gerson. "There's no way to replace him — he is a once in a generation," said Karl Rove, a White House deputy chief of staff. "He helped take the president on his best day and represent what was in the president's spirit and soul."

Mr. Gerson was known to have infused Mr. Bush's addresses with the religious allusions for which they became known. It was Mr. Gerson who changed the words "axis of hatred" to the more biblical "axis of evil." Mr. Gerson complained in an interview that the line was often misrepresented to apply directly to Iran, North Korea and Iraq, which were but examples of rogue states.

Asked to cite his favorite addresses, Mr. Gerson pointed to those that immediately followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, specifically a line from an address given three days afterward, at the National Cathedral: "Grief and tragedy and hatred are only for a time. Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end. And the Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn."

Adviser Who Shaped Bush's Speeches Is Leaving, NYT, 15.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/15/washington/15gerson.html?hp&ex=1150430400&en=eb10811444134cfd&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush: Guantanamo's future up to Supreme Court

Updated 6/14/2006 11:21 PM ET
USA TODAY
By Laura Parker

President Bush said Wednesday that he'd like to close the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where three detainees committed suicide Saturday. He said he was awaiting a Supreme Court decision about how terrorism suspects there could be tried.

"I'd like to close Guantanamo, but I also recognize that we're holding some people there that are darn dangerous and that we better have a plan to deal with them in our courts," Bush said at a news conference in the White House Rose Garden.

It was the second time in recent weeks that Bush has said he hoped to eventually shut down the prison, where 460 mostly Muslim foreigners are being held as unlawful enemy combatants.

The suicides on Saturday of two Saudis and a Yemeni, who hanged themselves with bedsheets, has increased pressure from groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to close the prison. European leaders renewed criticism of the facility and might press the point with Bush when they meet him in Vienna for a European Union summit on June 21.

The White House says detainees are treated fairly and humanely. All receive a review by military officers of their status as enemy combatants and are allowed to contest it. Lawyers for the detainees say they should be charged with crimes or released.

Ten detainees have been charged with crimes.

"The government should be ashamed that it has kept people four years without charges," said Nancy Hollander, a defense lawyer for a detainee.

There have been 41 reported suicide attempts since the prison opened in January 2002. Periodic hunger strikes have taken place. One last month involved 75 detainees.

Bush acknowledged that the prison has damaged the United States' reputation abroad.

"No question, Guantanamo sends a signal to some of our friends — provides an excuse, for example, to say the United States is not upholding the values that they're trying to encourage other countries to adhere to," he said.

He reiterated that the detainees are among the world's most dangerous terrorism suspects and that it is legal to hold them until the war on terrorism ends.

Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris, commander of Guantanamo, had termed the suicides an act of "asymmetrical warfare" against the United States.

Hollander, the attorney, called the description "despicable."

"The question to ask at some point is what would our government do if an American were being held in a foreign country under similar circumstances?" she said.

James Yee, the former Army chaplain at Guantanamo who was accused as a traitor and later exonerated, said the deaths more likely reflect the despair the inmates have over being held.

"This is a greater indication that these individuals were crying out for help," he said.

The suicides are the first at the prison. The military has said it will conduct a review of its operations there. An Afghan delegation returning from a 10-day visit to Guantanamo said Wednesday that conditions there were "humane."

Bush also said that "eventually, these people will have trials."

Military commissions for the 10 men charged were halted when Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who is accused of serving as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and delivering weapons to al-Qaeda, challenged the constitutionality of the military tribunal at which he was scheduled to be tried. The Supreme Court decision on the case is expected before the end of this month.

Mark Denbeaux, a law professor at Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey, said the president doesn't need the high court's ruling to either close the prison or allow detainees to be given hearings challenging the U.S. right to detain them without charges.

"Surely the president is powerful enough to give people he's held for four years a hearing," he said.

Contributing: Joan Biskupic in Washington

Bush: Guantanamo's future up to Supreme Court, UT, 14.6.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-06-14-bush-gitmo_x.htm

After Iraq Visit, Bush Urges Patience

June 14, 2006
The New York Times
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

Just hours after he returned from a surprise visit to Baghdad, President Bush said today that more "sacrifice and patience" would be needed from the American people as United States troops stay in Iraq to support the new government there and to continue to fight the insurgency.

He also said the new Iraqi government was concerned that "America will lose its nerve" in Iraq, and he warned that an early withdrawal of American troops would be a major setback to the fight against terrorism.

The message from Mr. Bush today suggested that although certain milestones have been achieved in Iraq, including elections, the formation of the new government and the killing of the most-wanted terrorist leader in the country, the American mission now included broader measurements of success, such as helping the new government "sustain", "govern" and "defend" itself, words that he repeated several times during the White House news conference.

Mr. Bush said that a key issue still remained about whether Iraqis were capable of standing up to the job before American troops could be drawn down.

"Our policy is stand up, stand down," but not too soon, Mr. Bush said. "We will support this Iraq government."

He said the policy of the United States was to "help them succeed."

Mr. Bush arrived back in Washington early this morning. He told reporters he was fighting fatigue from jet lag. But as he spoke at the podium at the White House, he forcefully gestured when he made his points, while several times he tried to engage reporters, commenting about one man's sunglasses or praising another reporter, apparently not a regular at the briefing, for his question.

Mr. Bush's news conference today was another big-ticket appearance in what has been now a days-long, orchestrated attempt by the White House to seize on the recent news in Iraq — the killing of the terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, last week and the final formation of the government — and turn it to its advantage.

Mr. Bush's visit to Iraq on Tuesday came in the middle of what the White House had billed as a two-day "war summit" at Camp David. And the president's briefing today, in the Rose Garden, was announced just a couple of hours before it began.

The moves come as Republicans sharpen their attacks on Democrats over the war, accusing them of wanting to "cut and run" in the face of a tough enemy.

Mr. Bush said that the recent debate about troop withdrawals was part of American society, but that it worried Iraqis because American forces provided a "sense of stability."

"No question there are concerns about whether or not the United States will stand with this government, and I can understand why." he said.

"And I'm concerned that an enemy will hear the wrong message. And then I'm also concerned that there are people inside Iraq who have yet to make up their mind as to whether or not they want to help this government succeed, or maybe, just maybe America will lose its nerve, and therefore, something else — a new team may show up," Mr. Bush said.

"And so I made it very clear to the Iraqis — and I'm going to make it clear to them again right here — that we're going — we'll stay with them and help them succeed."

Republicans in the House of Representatives are planning to introduce a resolution this week declaring Iraq a central part of "the global war on terror" and criticizing any move to set "an arbitrary date" for the withdrawal of American forces.

The proposed resolution comes as Democrats are having an intensive debate over a party position on the war.

This week, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts is calling for a withdrawal of most American combat troops by the end of the year, combined with a summit meeting to find a political and diplomatic solution to Iraqi's internal strife.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, was booed and met with shouts of "bring them home" from an audience of liberal Democrats here on Tuesday when she argued against setting such a deadline.

Mr. Bush used his news conference today to outline his strategy going forward, saying that "progress is hard to see" in Iraq. It was one thing, Mr. Bush said, to say that the United States "got" Mr. Zarqawi, and another to meet the new Iraqi prime minister and believe he can make the right decisions. He also said, "Don't count on us leaving before the mission is complete."

Mr. Bush said that in his talks with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his cabinet, the two sides discussed ways that the United States could help the new government. He said that Mr. Maliki wanted to improve Iraq's judicial system and that American justice officials would help them.

The United States Treasury Department is sending teams of experts to help Iraq's system become accountable and transparent, Mr. Bush said, while the secretary of agriculture will also play a role in Iraq's broader goal of economic reconstruction.

Mr. Bush also mentioned several times that Iraqi electricity networks needed to be fully functioning, and that the United States would continue in that endeavor.

American troops are keeping up the pressure on foreign fighters and Iraqi insurgents, while also taking part in the first phase of a security plan by Mr. Maliki in Baghdad today, the president said.

Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting from Washington for this article.

After Iraq Visit, Bush Urges Patience, NYT, 14.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/world/middleeast/14cnd-prexy.html?hp&ex=1150344000&en=d081d31973dc6fa0&ei=5094&partner=homepage

News Analysis

In Iraq Visit, Bush Seizes on a Step Forward

June 14, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, June 13 — In visiting Baghdad on Tuesday, President Bush was trying to deliver a carefully calibrated message to Americans: that Iraq and the administration's strategy there appear to be turning a corner, but troops will not be withdrawn anytime soon.

Mr. Bush could have spoken with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki by secure videoconference from Camp David. Instead, he embraced Mr. Maliki both figuratively and literally — at the same time embracing the political reality that Iraq is so central to his presidency that he cannot escape developments there, and must try instead to make the most of any good news.

"I'm impressed by the strength of your character and your desire to succeed," the president told the new prime minister, as the officials he left behind — Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — watched via remote video link. "And I'm impressed by your strategy."

It was powerful political theater, choreographed by an experienced team that played up the drama and secrecy of the moment, and were rewarded with a day of relatively unfiltered cable news coverage. The trip, including a stealthy nighttime helicopter departure from Camp David, unfolded with the precision of a campaign event, complete with the image of the commander in chief addressing cheering American troops.

But it was also a gamble. For Mr. Bush, the new Iraqi government is a life preserver, evidence of progress toward the goal of establishing democracy in a hostile environment.

Since the killing last week of the jihadist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, polls have shown some tentative signs of a reversal in the slide in public support for the war. Some foreign policy analysts, even those critical of Mr. Bush, see glimmers of hope."It's been a steady drumbeat of disastrous tactical news, so this is a very significant event," said one of those critics, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired Army commander, referring to the formation of the new government. "This is the decisive turning point, not whacking Zarqawi."

Yet experience suggests that steps forward with Iraq are often followed by more violence, which in turn erodes any surge in public support for the war.

And the fledgling Baghdad government is both fragile and untested. So the administration is putting all of its diplomatic and bureaucratic muscle behind Mr. Maliki, with the goals of turning things around in Iraq, putting a floor under the president's plummeting job approval ratings and keeping the war from leading to a Republican defeat in Congressional elections in November.

For the White House, Tuesday's visit could not have come at a more opportune time. Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, learned Monday that he would not be indicted in the C.I.A. leak investigation — news that freed Mr. Rove to go on the offensive against the Democrats, as he did Monday night during a speech in New Hampshire when he derided them for what he called "that party's old pattern of cutting and running."

As Mr. Bush pledged to Iraqis in Baghdad that he would stick by them, Democrats in Washington were debating whether the United States should set a deadline for withdrawing troops, creating precisely the contrast the White House sought to establish.

"There is no stronger statement about American engagement than the president landing on Iraqi soil not only to talk with Iraqi leaders but also to spend time with U.S. troops," said Dan Senor, a former adviser to the American-led coalition in Iraq who is now a crisis management consultant in New York.

Mr. Senor, a supporter of the White House, said no other issue is as critical to the future of Mr. Bush's presidency.

"Working on an immigration reform compromise is important, but at the end of the day, if Iraq is a failure nothing else in the Bush presidency will matter," he said. "The president isn't going to get any credit by having success on other issues, particularly on the domestic front, if in January 2009 he hands a mess to the next president of the United States on Iraq."

In a sense, Mr. Bush went to Iraq with few options. There is little evidence that security is improving, and the president has long said American soldiers will not leave until the Iraqis assume that responsibility. So instead, the White House is turning to a strategy that proved successful in the elections of 2004, insisting Mr. Bush will stay the course while at the same time making Iraq a proxy for the broader national security debate.

"I fully recognize there's people who are concerned about the really short-term history," Mr. Bush told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One. "I'm concerned about the long-term history of what we're doing. I believe what we're doing is necessary and right."

Although three recent national opinion polls suggested that Americans may be more hopeful about the long-term prospect for stability in Iraq since the death of Mr. Zarqawi, Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster, said the reversal in attitudes has been modest and the president has yet to benefit personally.

Kenneth M. Duberstein, a former chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, said the Baghdad trip proved that the president can "dominate the agenda whenever he wants to" and that Mr. Bush is aware that "Iraq is central, not only to his presidency, but his legacy." He said it was possible for the White House, slowly but steadily, to turn public opinion around, drawing a football analogy to describe how the president might reach that goal.

He cited the strategy of the legendary football coach Woody Hayes, which was not to rely on dramatic Hail Mary passes, but to focus on winning a game bit by bit with what was known as "three yards and cloud of dust."

Mr. Duberstein went on, "What Bush is doing is not Hail Marys, but three yards and a cloud of dust. And he has to earn it every day."

In Iraq Visit, Bush Seizes on a Step Forward, NYT, 14.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/washington/14assess.html?hp&ex=1150344000&en=67e715e81c8d0876&ei=5094&partner=homepage

In a news conference in the Rose Garden,
the president said that he expected steady progress in Iraq, not a sea change in the fight against insurgents.

Andrew Councill For The New York Times June 14, 2006

As Agenda Falters, Bush Tries a More Personal Approach in Dealing With Congress NYT 11.6.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/washington/11bush.html

As Agenda Falters, Bush Tries a More Personal Approach in Dealing With Congress

June 11, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, June 10 — Senator John W. Warner and his wife were at the White House for a Memorial Day photo session with veterans when they received an unexpected invitation from President Bush. "Come on," the president said suddenly. "Let's go back to the Oval Office."

What followed, said Mr. Warner, a Virginia Republican and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was a rare 15 minutes alone with the president, no aides or staff in sight.

Mr. Bush escorted the couple to a private garden that President Ronald Reagan had built — "I never knew it was back there," said Mr. Warner, whose public service dates to the Eisenhower administration — and, just as important, solicited Mr. Warner's views on Iraq.

"It was a nice way of doing things," Mr. Warner said.

It was also a new way of doing things for a president who Republicans in Congress say has for years treated them like pesky younger siblings, ignoring their ideas and calling on them only to promote his legislation on Capitol Hill.

Now, with Mr. Bush's poll numbers sinking and his agenda faltering, the White House needs Republicans in Congress more than ever. Without necessarily taking the advice he is seeking from Capitol Hill, Mr. Bush is adding a more personal touch to his presidency in an effort to put himself in the good graces of lawmakers.

The effort, choreographed by senior advisers to Mr. Bush, began late last year and intensified in April after Joshua B. Bolten became chief of staff, said two officials involved. So the president, a man not given to Washington schmoozing, now holds intimate cocktail parties on the Truman Balcony, overlooking the South Lawn, for lawmakers and their spouses, complete with tours of the Lincoln Bedroom led by him and the first lady.

For the first time in his presidency, Mr. Bush is also inviting lawmakers to the White House in small groups not to discuss specific issues, but simply to ask what is on their minds. These informal brainstorming sessions occur not in the Oval Office, but over iced tea and lemonade in the cozy Yellow Oval room of the private residence.

But courting lawmakers only goes so far in bridging serious policy and political differences, and it is hard to find evidence that Mr. Bush's new open-ear policy has led to any substantive change in direction by the White House.

The administration has also stumbled frequently in its intensified efforts to reach out to Congress, raising questions about how much it has accomplished in mollifying Republican lawmakers, some of whom are heading into re-election campaigns concerned that Mr. Bush could be a political liability.

The depth of the strain was evident this week when Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, complained publicly that Vice President Dick Cheney, the administration's primary liaison to members of Congress, had meddled in committee business behind his back.

The Specter-Cheney imbroglio followed a string of Congressional relations debacles this year. Congress fought Mr. Bush over port security, and some House Republicans, including Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, were furious about the ouster of Porter J. Goss, a former congressman, as C.I.A. director. The president was also forced to step in to mediate a separation of powers dispute when the House leadership, in a rare show of bipartisanship, expressed outrage over the F.B.I. search of a Congressional office.

"I don't think this turns on romance; it turns on policy," Mr. Specter said, asked to assess the state of Mr. Bush's relationship with Congress. "He needs to recognize that government functions with Congress exercising its own constitutional prerogatives, like oversight."

Some Republicans, including the Senate whip, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, said relations were improving. But Ms. Snowe, who attended a recent informal session in the private residence, also said White House officials "continue to hit rough patches" and should have sought "the collective wisdom" of senior lawmakers long ago.

"We all cited chapter and verse our views," Ms. Snowe said. "But I think some of the problems, like the controversy over port security, could have been avoided if there had been more of a track record of seeking various views of people who are in key positions. A lot more groundwork should have been laid."

Two senior administration officials, who were granted anonymity to publicly discuss internal deliberations, said Mr. Bush and his advisers recognized late last year that with the midterm elections coming up, they needed to reach out. Relations had become especially strained, one official said, when Congress rebuffed the president on his plan to overhaul Social Security.

"The Social Security debate was a tough one," the official said. "They didn't want to do it, and he wanted to."

Presidents have historically used the social powers of the office to build goodwill at the Capitol. Lyndon B. Johnson was a master at it; Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were especially good. But Mr. Bush, with his early-to-bed, early-to-rise habits, has shown little interest in the social networking that characterizes so much of Washington political life, said James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

"If you had to evaluate presidents, 1 to 10, and Johnson is a 10, this president is a 1," Professor Thurber said. "The state of his presidency vis-à-vis the Congress is bad not only because he's down in the polls. It's not only bad because of the war and the Katrina mess. It's bad because he never reaches out. He's not that kind of guy. He goes bicycle riding with the Secret Service rather than bringing people together."

But White House officials insist that the president supported their plan to expand his social schedule, particularly with the informal settings he is most comfortable in. "He definitely understood the importance of having good relations and improving upon it," one of the senior officials said, "and he has been willing to give the time necessary to make sure that happens."

Some presidents, like Johnson, have been creatures of Congress, and others, like Reagan, have worked to cultivate relationships. Senator Warner recalled the close friendship between Reagan and Paul Laxalt, the former senator from Nevada who was sometimes referred to as the "first friend."

"Many times, I've seen Laxalt get up in a heated caucus, where it gets explosive, and say, 'Come on guys, I talked to the president today,' " Mr. Warner said. "And we knew when Paul spoke, he'd just been with Reagan."

No one speaks quite that way for Mr. Bush, although he does have friends on Capitol Hill. One of the closest is Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican whose father, Hugh, was a former governor and ran the New Hampshire presidential campaign for Mr. Bush's father. Mr. Gregg and his wife spent a recent weekend with the Bushes at Camp David. But Mr. Bush also portrays himself as an outsider to Washington.

"You can't continue to bash Washington and Congress and have good relations with them," Professor Thurber said.

But the president does seem to be seizing on spontaneous moments, as he did with Mr. Warner. When Mr. Hastert complained during an Air Force One flight about Mr. Goss's departure from the C.I.A., the president promptly invited Mr. Hastert to join him on Marine One, the presidential helicopter, from Andrews Air Force Base to the White House for a visit to the Oval Office.

Mr. Hastert's spokesman, Ron Bonjean, said the speaker had never been aboard before. "He was honored," Mr. Bonjean said.

Senator John E. Sununu, another New Hampshire Republican whose father was chief of staff to Mr. Bush's father, said the president should do more of that.

The White House has not used "the personal power of the presidency to the effect that they could," said Mr. Sununu, who, along with his wife, was a guest at one of the recent Truman Balcony cocktail parties. The reception took place shortly after Mr. Bolten was named chief of staff; Candi Wolff, the administration's chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill, was also there.

"I left having a pretty good sense of what Josh hoped to do in the next couple of weeks as he stepped into his role; I talked to Candi at some length about some of the relationship issues," Mr. Sununu said. "I probably even said, 'This is really good, this is the kind of thing you need to do more of.' "

As Agenda Falters, Bush Tries a More Personal Approach in Dealing With Congress, NYT, 11.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/washington/11bush.html

The White House

After Welcome Piece of News, a Decision to Stay Silent

June 8, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, June 8 — As news that United States forces had killed the most wanted terrorist in Iraq began to spread through the American security apparatus late Wednesday afternoon, President Bush and his top advisers were meeting in the White House with congressional leaders, who were nervous about continued trouble in Iraq.

"What you really need to do," Representative Ray LaHood of Illinois told the president, "is go get Zarqawi," according to an account by the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, who was at the meeting.

"I said 'Yeah, we'll just order that up right now,' " Mr. Snow recalled in an interview this morning.

Minutes after that exchange, at 3:45 p.m., the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, left the room in response to a Blackberry message to call the American ambassador to Iraq in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad.

"We think we have Zarqawi," Mr. Khalilzad told him.

Forty minutes later, according to Mr. Snow, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld called Mr. Hadley to say the same thing — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man Osama bin Laden called "the prince of Al Qaeda in Iraq," was dead.

But he kept the yet-unconfirmed news secret until after the meeting ended at 4:20, and then finally told the president. "That would be a good day," Mr. Bush said, according to Mr. Snow, who was briefed on the discussion.

The import of the news was immediately clear to everybody in the room. Iraq, officials have acknowledged, is the single most important dark cloud hanging over this White House. Officials see the continued troubles there — and the sparse good news from there — as the single most important factor in the president's low approval ratings, hobbling his ability to pursue his agenda not only abroad but also at home.

But it would be exactly five hours until the news would be confirmed, through finger prints, scars and, Mr. Snow said, possibly tattoos.

Mr. Rumsfeld today said that he had been notified Wednesday night in a call from Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the American commander in Iraq, that the attack had been made and that troops were moving in to search the site and confirm the identities. White House officials said today that they decided to hold off from the obvious temptation to try to break into prime time television right away with the rare good news. Rather, they decided it would be best to the secret for as long as possible and allow it to be announced in Baghdad, along with the news that the government there had finally filled three key posts, the ministers of defense, interior and national security.

Officials also decided to proceed carefully and not repeat mistakes of the past by referring to the capture as a turning point or an end to violence in Iraq, which is expected to, if anything, increase in coming days.

"There are no delusions that violence will dry up," Mr. Snow said. "We wouldn't be surprised if we saw a spike in violence as those who were Zarqawi's charges say, 'Look, we're still a factor.' "

Mr. Bush was careful to speak in measured tones this morning, when he announced the news at a hastily called 7:30 a.m. announcement in the Rose Garden.

"Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues," Mr. Bush said, speaking somberly and betraying no elation. "We can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him. We can expect the sectarian violence to continue."

Still, Mr. Bush's top aides — Karl Rove, Dan Bartlett, Nicolle Wallace, Joel Kaplan — were clearly buoyed by the announcement, all smiling and jovial as they gathered for the president's announcement.

It was the most purely good news out of Iraq in months.

The White House has been under pressure to "draw down" troop levels in Iraq as quickly as possible, with some congressional Republicans, nervous about the war's potential impact on their re-election prospects this fall, joining Democrats in calling for a reduction in forces in Iraq.

The White House has made a concerted effort to boost the war effort, recalibrating the president's statements to acknowledge mistakes and the difficulties, but asserting that the decision to go to war was right and that history would ultimately show that.

But every piece of good news — strong showing at polling sites during elections; the formation of the new government — has been quickly overwhelmed by new pictures on television of bombings and atrocities in Iraq. The latest setback came with reports that United States marines may have deliberately killed 24 civilians in Haditha.

Yet Mr. Zarqawi was a prolific provider of horrific images. And White House officials are clearly hoping that at the very least, this latest event can begin to turn around stubborn perceptions at home that effort in Iraq are foundering — and give them new fodder to make the case that the president's optimism is justified.

Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting from Brussels for this article.

After Welcome Piece of News, a Decision to Stay Silent, NYT, 8.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/middleeast/08cnd-bush.html?hp&ex=1149825600&en=fa49503470efb9f0&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The Reaction

Bush Cautiously Notes Chance to 'Turn the Tide'

June 8, 2006
The New York Times
By CHRISTINE HAUSER

President Bush said today that the killing of the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq and an opportunity for the new government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to "turn the tide of the struggle" against the insurgency.

But while emphasizing the importance of the death of the high-profile face of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Mr. Bush appeared to be careful to avoid any suggestion that Mr. Zarqawi's killing marked a final victory over the insurgency or an end to the American mission there.

"Zarqawi is dead," Mr. Bush said in early morning remarks at the White House. "But the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues. We can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him."

He added: "We can expect the sectarian violence to continue. Yet the ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders."

"Now Zarqawi has met his end," Mr. Bush said, "and this violent man will never murder again."

Mr. Bush said that at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday in Baghdad (10:15 a.m. Eastern time), special operations forces, acting on tips and intelligence from Iraqis, confirmed Mr. Zarqawi's location, and "delivered justice to the most wanted terrorist in Iraq."

Mr. Bush, who noted that Osama bin Laden referred to Mr. Zarqawi as the "prince" of Al Qaeda in Iraq, recalled early in his remarks that Mr. Zarqawi was responsible for some of the worst attacks in Iraq and neighboring Jordan, including the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad and a number of hotels in Amman. He also appeared to dampen any expectation that the killing of the Jordanian-born militant meant an early end to the American mission there.

"We have tough days ahead of us in Iraq that will require the continued patience of the American people," Mr. Bush said. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking in Brussels where he was attending a NATO meeting, said the killing of Mr. Zarqawi would "slow them down," referring to Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"This fellow was the mastermind behind the network," he said.

Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former marine who has become a fierce critic of the Iraq war, said now that a "real thorn" in the side of the Americans has been removed, Iraqi forces were trained and a government was in place, the Bush administration should compose a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops.

"We cannot win this," he said in an interview on CNN. "It is a civil war they are involved in. Al Qaeda is a small part of this."

He added, "We have Sunnis fighting Shiites and the Americans are caught in between."

The insurgency and violence in Iraq is fueled by a complicated fabric of foreign fighters, Saddam Hussein loyalists and other groups, while most recently, militias have been blamed for sectarian strife.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., in an interview on CNN, noted that the various groups that have contributed to the violence in Iraq were not all linked to Mr. Zarqawi.

"He did not control any of those people," he said in the interview.

The senior American military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, speaking at a news conference in Baghdad, said the killing of Mr. Zarqawi was "very critical" because he had called for Sunnis to kill Shiites.

Speaking in London, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain was cautious about the effect that the killing of Mr. Zarqawi would have on dampening the insurgency, saying that the campaign of civil strife and violence in Iraq was "designed to stifle Iraqi democracy at birth, and al-Zarqawi was its most vicious prosecutor."

"The death of al-Zarqawi is a strike against Al Qaeda in Iraq, and therefore a strike against Al Qaeda everywhere," Mr. Blair said in a televised news conference.

"But we should have no illusions," he said. "We know that they will continue to kill. We know there are many, many obstacles to overcome but they also know that our determination to defeat them is total."

He said that whatever the past debates in going to war in Iraq, in the three years since the removal of Saddam Hussein from power a struggle of a different nature has taken shape.

He said that the fight against Al Qaeda should continue by an international community, united under a United Nations mandate in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, said he expected that Iraqis were relieved.

"Of course, we cannot pretend that that will mean the end of the violence," Mr. Annan said. "But it is a relief that such a heinous and dangerous man who has caused so much harm to the Iraqis is no longer around."

John Holusha contributed reporting for this article.

Bush Cautiously Notes Chance to 'Turn the Tide', NYT, 8.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/middleeast/07cnd-reaction.html?hp&ex=1149825600&en=4e3f646069002db1&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Statement by the President on Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

June 8, 2006
7:31 A.M. EDT

The White House
Rose Garden
Washington, D.C.

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Last night in Iraq, United States military forces killed the terrorist al Zarqawi. At 6:15 p.m. Baghdad time, special operation forces, acting on tips and intelligence from Iraqis, confirmed Zarqawi's location, and delivered justice to the most wanted terrorist in Iraq.

Zarqawi was the operational commander of the terrorist movement in Iraq. He led a campaign of car bombings, assassinations and suicide attacks that has taken the lives of many American forces and thousands of innocent Iraqis. Osama bin Laden called this Jordanian terrorist "the prince of al Qaeda in Iraq." He called on the terrorists around the world to listen to him and obey him. Zarqawi personally beheaded American hostages and other civilians in Iraq. He masterminded the destruction of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. He was responsible for the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, and the bombing of a hotel in Amman.

Through his every action, he sought to defeat America and our coalition partners, and turn Iraq into a safe haven from which al Qaeda could wage its war on free nations. To achieve these ends, he worked to divide Iraqis and incite civil war. And only last week he released an audio tape attacking Iraq's elected leaders, and denouncing those advocating the end of sectarianism.

Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again. Iraqis can be justly proud of their new government and its early steps to improve their security. And Americans can be enormously proud of the men and women of our armed forces, who worked tirelessly with their Iraqi counterparts to track down this brutal terrorist and put him out of business.

The operation against Zarqawi was conducted with courage and professionalism by the finest military in the world. Coalition and Iraqi forces persevered through years of near misses and false leads, and they never gave up. Last night their persistence and determination were rewarded. On behalf of all Americans, I congratulate our troops on this remarkable achievement.

Zarqawi is dead, but the difficult and necessary mission in Iraq continues. We can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him. We can expect the sectarian violence to continue. Yet the ideology of terror has lost one of its most visible and aggressive leaders.

Zarqawi's death is a severe blow to al Qaeda. It's a victory in the global war on terror, and it is an opportunity for Iraq's new government to turn the tide of this struggle. A few minutes ago I spoke to Prime Minister Maliki. I congratulated him on close collaboration between coalition and Iraqi forces that helped make this day possible. Iraq's freely elected Prime Minister is determined to defeat our common enemies and bring security and the rule of law to all its people.

Earlier this morning he announced the completion of his cabinet appointments, with the naming of a new Minister of Defense, a new Minister of the Interior, and a new Minister of State for National Security. These new ministers are part of a democratic government that represents all Iraqis. They will play a vital role as the Iraqi government addresses its top priorities -- reconciliation and reconstruction and putting an end to the kidnappings and beheadings and suicide bombings that plague the Iraqi people. I assured Prime Minister Maliki that he will have the full support of the United States of America.

On Monday I will meet with my national security team and other key members of my Cabinet at Camp David to discuss the way forward in Iraq. Our top diplomats and military commanders in Iraq will give me an assessment of recent changes in the political and economic and security situation on the ground. On Tuesday, Iraq's new Ambassador to the United States will join us, and we will have a teleconference discussion with the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet. Together we will discuss how to best deploy America's resources in Iraq and achieve our shared goal of an Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself.

We have tough days ahead of us in Iraq that will require the continued patience of the American people. Yet the developments of the last 24 hours give us renewed confidence in the final outcome of this struggle: the defeat of terrorism threats, and a more peaceful world for our children and grandchildren.

May God bless the Iraqi people and may God continue to bless America.

END 7:37 A.M. EDT

Statement by the President on Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, White House, 8.6.2006, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060608.html

Bush Says Deportation 'Ain't Gonna Work'

June 8, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:34 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rejecting an argument being made by some conservatives in his own party, President Bush said Thursday that the idea that the United States could force millions of illegal immigrants to return home ''ain't gonna work.''

Bush told a gathering of Hispanic leaders that the immigration system is broken and Congress needs to pass ''commonsense'' reform that strengthens the border while allowing more foreigners in to work temporarily and giving those who sneaked in years ago a chance to become citizens.

''There are those here in Washington who say, `Why don't we just find the folks and send them home,''' Bush said. ''That ain't gonna work.''

He said although it sounds simple, it is impractical to insist that the 12 million illegal immigrants estimated to be living in the U.S. leave and come back legally. Some prominent conservatives in his party say allowing those immigrants to become citizens without returning home would amount to amnesty.

Bush defined amnesty as allowing those immigrants to automatically become citizens. He said instead they first should be required to prove that they have been working and abiding the law, pay a fine, learn English and wait behind those who have been in the country legally.

''We don't have to choose between the extremes,'' Bush said. ''There's a rational middle ground.''

Bush is trying to get Congress to pass his immigration plan, but a block of conservative lawmakers have been firmly opposed to it and prefer legislation that would take a harder stance against those who break the law to sneak in the country. House and Senate negotiators have yet to meet to resolve the differences in the two different approaches.

Bush's remarks came during a 15-minute speech at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in which he also talked about his faith in God. ''I rely upon the Almighty for strength and comfort,'' Bush told the participants gathered in a hotel ballroom just a couple blocks from the White House.

''This morning we come together to give our thanks for all our blessings, and recognize our nation's continuing dependence on divine providence,'' he said.

On the Net:

http://www.whitehouse.gov

Bush Says Deportation 'Ain't Gonna Work', NYT, 8.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Immigration.html?hp&ex=1149825600&en=0783779a5073a0ed&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush Suggests Immigrants Learn English

June 8, 2006
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

OMAHA, June 7 — President Bush urged immigrants on Wednesday to learn English and history and civics with the goal of "helping us remain one nation under God."

On the second day of a campaign-style trip to sell his immigration bill to the public and to skeptical conservatives in Congress, Mr. Bush also directed his homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, to create a "task force on new Americans" to expand local initiatives to help immigrants integrate into American society.

"One aspect of making sure we have an immigration system that works, that's orderly and fair, is to actively reach out and help people assimilate into our country," Mr. Bush said in a speech at a community college here. "That means learn the values and history and language of America."

While the task force is largely symbolic — there is no new money for it — the president's fresh emphasis on assimilation is part of a strategy by the White House to unite Republicans in the House and Senate around what Mr. Bush calls "comprehensive immigration reform."

The House has passed a border security bill. The Senate measure, favored by the president, includes a temporary guest worker program and a plan for citizenship for some illegal immigrants who have been here several years, so long as they work, pay taxes and learn English.

Mr. Bush dipped into the issue carefully, steering clear of a hot-button provision in the Senate bill that directs the federal government to "preserve and enhance the role of English as the national language" — a provision that White House aides say the president supports. It falls short of the goals of a more controversial movement to make English the official language.

After meeting with immigrants who are learning English and receiving assistance from the Juan Diego Center, a Catholic Charities organization here, Mr. Bush used his speech to feature immigrant business owners. He singled out an auto repair shop owner, Salvador Piña, who received a $10,000 loan from Catholic Charities and now owns his building and has three employees.

"When you hear people like me talking about assimilation," Mr. Bush said, "that's what we're talking about, helping people assimilate into America, helping us remain one nation under God."

Bush Suggests Immigrants Learn English, NYT, 8.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/washington/08bush.html

As President's Poll Numbers Fall, Many in Utah Stand by the Man

June 4, 2006
The New York Times
By TIMOTHY EGAN

PROVO, Utah — Here in what may be the reddest city in the reddest of states, where Democrats sometimes gather like lost souls at the one Starbucks, most people are standing by President Bush.

When he gives a speech that angers voters or brings ridicule from other parts of the country, people here pick up different messages. They might break with Mr. Bush on the war in Iraq or on illegal immigration, but not with the man himself.

"When I watch him, I see a man with his heart in the right place," said Delia Randall, a 22-year-old mother from Provo, the hub of a county that gave Senator John Kerry just 11 percent of the presidential vote in 2004. "I like George Bush because he is God fearing, and that's how a lot of people in this area feel."

These voters are among the committed Bush supporters who are standing proudly by him as he tries to reverse the poll numbers that are sliding even in Utah, hang on to Republican control of Congress, revive his agenda and stabilize Iraq.

This core group is a highly concentrated version of the Bush base, one that appears to be motivated more by general principles and a comfort level with the president than by specific issues or political trends. They tend to be impressed by Mr. Bush's faith and convinced that he understands their lives and values. They like what they see as his muscular foreign policy.

These supporters are mostly clustered in places like Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, the only three states where Mr. Bush's job approval rating is at or above 50 percent, and in smaller pockets in areas like the suburbs of Birmingham, Ala.; northwest Georgia; and the Florida Panhandle.

"I'm against the war in Iraq — and what happened with Hurricane Katrina, well, it was a failure by everybody," said Ron Craft, a sales manager in Provo who said he was a devout Mormon and a strong conservative who considered himself independent politically. "I tend to judge a person by their character. And President Bush reminds me of President Reagan. He's a man of principle."

All of the administration's perceived failures, including the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina and the budget deficit, go through a different filter in these Bush strongholds. Sounding a familiar theme, Mr. Craft said he was distrustful of news media portrayals of Mr. Bush because "they concentrate too much on the negative and certain small things."

The redemptive narrative that Mr. Bush has often told about his life — a frequent drinker who found God and his political purpose in early middle-age — has greater resonance here than in other parts of the country. And people say they are willing to overlook major problems, or not blame Mr. Bush for trouble spots, because they like his personality.

"He's strong, and he doesn't waver," said Jaren Olsen, 18, a freshman at Brigham Young, the nation's largest religiously affiliated private university, who is from Albany. "I like that he is for the family, that marriage should only be between a man and woman. And the war, we need to finish what we started."

Another student at Brigham Young, Danielle Pulsipher, a junior, offered blanket approval of the president. Asked to name which of his actions as president she liked most, she was hard-pressed to answer.

"I'm not sure of anything he's done, but I like that he's religious — that's really important," Ms. Pulsipher said.

Not that Mr. Bush is immune from national political trends even among the most faithful.

A poll released in May by SurveyUSA, conducted in Utah for KSL-TV, found that 51 percent of respondents approved of the job Mr. Bush was doing, with 46 percent disapproving. The margin of error was plus or minus four percentage points. The firm, through its other polling, found that the only other state above 50 percent was Idaho, at 52; in Wyoming, it was 50 percent. Mr. Bush's approval rating has dropped as low as 23 percent in Rhode Island and New York.

In Utah, Mr. Bush took 72 percent of the presidential vote in 2004. His support has dropped since then, according to polls, because many conservatives are upset over immigration and, to a lesser extent, the expansion of the federal government.

"When you get down to almost 50 percent in Utah, that's the canary-in-the-mine-shaft of all warnings for Republicans," said Kelly Patterson, director of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young. The walls of Mr. Patterson's office bear a headline from the last time a Democrat won Utah in a presidential race — it was Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1964.

Still, because voters in the state are strongly religious, with a huge majority belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and strongly Republican, the well of support for Mr. Bush is deeper here than in almost any other place in the country.

Religion and political views go hand in hand here, voter surveys show. The state has the nation's highest birth rate and the youngest population. Voters tend to be better educated than in many states, and about 60,000 people a year go on Mormon missions overseas, giving them a different view of the world.

In Provo, a prosperous city of just over 100,000 people built around Brigham Young, about 8 of every 10 voters are registered Republicans. Last year, Provo was rated the most conservative city in America by the nonpartisan Bay Area Center for Voter Research.

"This is a community committed to faith, family and freedom, and that translates to consistent popularity for George Bush," said Mayor Lewis K. Billings of Provo.

"People here like so much of what George Bush has done," Mr. Billings said. "I think he's got support on almost everything — except immigration."

In interviews, voters uniformly said they were standing by the president, even as they listed things they disagreed with.

"I like his honesty," said Allison Wilkey, a mother of three.

But the same religious view that guides the dominant political strain in Utah is leading others to question Mr. Bush.

In the church wards here, people are constantly reminded of the virtues of thrift, balanced budgets and family-based decision making. The record federal deficit, the largest expansion of the federal government in a generation and the intrusion of Washington in education through the No Child Left Behind law are often cited by people who say the country is going in the wrong direction.

"There is this puritanical strain when it comes to thrift here, and one of the dominant themes is to get out of debt," said Joseph A. Cannon, the chairman of the State Republican Party. "So people wonder why we, the Republicans, control every branch of government and yet we can't stay out of debt."

Democrats say no state has had a bigger swing in opinion polls this year than Utah, with Mr. Bush's approval rating falling 15 points this spring. Wayne Holland, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Utah, said residents here were "more trusting, more patient with a president, but when it finally starts to go south, it really drops."

Even so, many Democrats in Utah say they keep their politics to themselves.

"We don't talk politics because everyone is so one-sided," said Sarah Rueckert, a mother of three and a Mormon who just moved back to Utah after 10 years of living in places like Chicago, Portland and San Francisco. "They're all pro-Bush."

As President's Poll Numbers Fall, Many in Utah Stand by the Man, NYT, 4.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/washington/04believers.html?hp&ex=1149480000&en=ec499f4b62dcd415&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Bush to Press for U.S. Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

June 3, 2006
The New York Times
By JIM RUTENBERG

WASHINGTON, June 2 — President Bush is beginning a major push for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, part of a new campaign to appease cultural conservatives who say he and his party abandoned their issues after the 2004 elections.

Mr. Bush plans to declare strong support for the amendment — scheduled for a vote in the Senate next week — in his radio address on Saturday, and at an event at the White House on Monday with conservative activists and religious leaders, White House officials said Friday.

Taken together, the events will be the first time Mr. Bush has so strongly promoted his opposition to same-sex marriage since his re-election campaign nearly two years ago. Democrats accused the White House of trotting out a reliable hot-button issue to help soothe and re-energize disgruntled conservative voters five months before the midterm Congressional elections. "Everybody's going to see through it," said Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

But, in a new twist this year, some conservative activists expressed similar cynicism. They said Mr. Bush and the Republicans in Congress had a long way to go to convince social conservatives that they viewed the issue as anything but a politically convenient tool that they picked up only when they needed to motivate their core voters.

After the 2004 campaign, they say, Mr. Bush put his energies into domestic issues like Social Security and immigration rather than into the marriage amendment and other topics of interest to grass-roots conservatives.

"It was so central in the 2004 election," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative research group, said of same-sex marriage. "And the day after, the president began a crusade to reform Social Security and it went nowhere. Why not put energy into something that's vital for our society and our country?"

Mr. Perkins said he was encouraged by the White House plan to promote the amendment. But he said that as Washington's attention had been focused elsewhere, judges in several states had ruled against state laws banning same-sex marriage, including Georgia and Nebraska. And he and others said they were concerned by other court cases pending in states including New York, New Jersey and Washington.

Washington Republicans and so-called values voters, Christian radio stations and Internet blogs have been on fire with discussions of moves by what they call activist judges to destroy the institution of marriage as the immigration debate and developments in Iraq have dominated the mainstream news media.

Conservatives expressed still more alarm as Mary Cheney, the vice president's daughter, who is a lesbian, went on national television promoting her book this year and discussed her distaste for the president's opposition to same-sex marriage in 2004.

Adding to what conservatives describe as the fuzziness of the White House's position, the president's wife, Laura, said of same-sex marriage last month, "I don't think it should be used as a campaign tool."

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Mrs. Bush added, "It requires a lot of sensitivity just to talk about the issue, a lot of sensitivity."

The Senate debate on the marriage amendment is the first in what is expected to be a series of efforts by the White House and its allies to highlight social conservative causes in the run-up to the fall campaign.

After having received widespread praise from conservatives for winning confirmation for two new Supreme Court justices last year, the White House has signaled that it intends to nominate another group of conservative federal judges. In addition, Congress is likely to vote on an amendment banning flag burning, and some Republicans hope to find ways to focus attention on efforts to restrict abortion further.

There is no assurance that the White House effort to motivate social conservatives will be as effective in the election year as it was in 2002 and 2004. Conservative leaders have grown increasingly disenchanted with the administration's record, and at the grass-roots level Mr. Bush is under fire for his position on immigration.

This week White House officials have emphasized that whatever the views of those around the president, his belief that marriage should be between a man and woman has never changed.

Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, on Friday batted down suggestions that the president's involvement in the same-sex marriage debate was politically motivated. Rather, he said, with a number of court cases in the works and the Senate's move to vote on the constitutional amendment on Tuesday, the time "is ripe."

The vote on the amendment is considered largely symbolic because it is not expected to pass by the required two-thirds majority in Congress, let alone the ratification by three-fourths of the states that a constitutional amendment requires. The amendment would not only define marriage as being between a man and a woman, but would also prevent courts from requiring that states allow civil unions.

Opponents say the amendment could prohibit the legal equivalents of marriage, like civil unions; supporters say it would leave that up to states but take away the right of courts to impose civil unions on states that have voted to ban same-sex marriages.

"Nobody thinks it's going anywhere," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, saying he believed the move was meant to divert attention from high gasoline prices and Iraq.

Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, agreed that other issues sapping conservative enthusiasm — such as moves to open the way to citizenship for illegal immigrants — would overshadow any progress on gay marriage. But he said those most loudly complaining about the president's conservative agenda would never be appeased.

Citing the president's successful nominations to the Supreme Court of John G. Roberts Jr., the new chief justice, and Samuel A. Alito Jr., Mr. Fabrizio said, "I'm trying to think of what he hasn't done for them — talk about fair-weather friends."

Phil Burress, who organized the successful campaign against same-sex marriage in Ohio in 2004 that many credit with helping Mr. Bush there, said the president's involvement would call attention to the issue as several states moved on "defense of marriage" initiatives this election year.

Mr. Burress said the Senate's amendment was already paying off for a Republican senator in his state, Mike DeWine, who faces a tough re-election fight. Mr. Burress said that he was displeased with Mr. DeWine as being too silent about same-sex marriage, but that his opinion changed when Mr. DeWine co-sponsored the proposed amendment.

"It's going to send him back to Washington," Mr. Burress said.

Bush to Press for U.S. Ban on Same-Sex Marriage, NYT, 3.6.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/03/us/03bush.html