The Next Hurrah notes that actually two DOJ officials resigned from main Justice this week.

LAT: US seeks to deport ex-councilwoman. "Cuban-born Zoila Meyer surrendered to the San Bernardino County office of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday and was arrested on charges of violating immigration laws. The arrest stems from Meyer's voting in the presidential election and pleading guilty to an unlawful voter charge last year. Meyer, a 40-year-old mother of four who has lived in the United States since she was 1, is a legal alien resident but not a U.S. citizen, according to the San Bernardino County district attorney's office. Meyer could not be reached Friday but told the Associated Press that she always assumed she was a citizen, and was unaware of her immigration status when she voted and ran for office." Reader B, "Justice is seeking to deport a woman for voting in a presidential election. She was born in Cuba and brought to the US when she was a baby and had no idea she wasn't a citizen."

What's going on here? Federal appeals court orders Kontogiannis transcripts sealed:

Transcripts of four hearings in the case of Thomas Kontogiannis, a financier who pleaded guilty in connection with the Randy "Duke" Cunningham scandal, will remain sealed, a federal appeals court said yesterday.

Kontogiannis pleaded guilty in February to providing $1.1 million in mortgages to Cunningham for a Rancho Santa Fe mansion, even though he knew the house was the proceeds of illegal activity.

Cunningham is serving an eight-year, four-month sentence after admitting he accepted bribes from defense contractors that helped purchase the home and other property.

In an unusual step, Kontogiannis' guilty plea was done in a secret, closed hearing. The plea agreement was unsealed earlier this month, and last week Burns ordered that transcripts of four hearings related to the plea also be made public.

Federal prosecutors objected in motions filed under seal last week. Yesterday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal ordered the documents to remain secret and scheduled a hearing for the week of Aug. 6.

At a hearing in federal court in San Diego yesterday, Burns said that the government invoked federal laws dealing with classified information in their papers filed last week.

He said that when the secret hearings took place four months ago, prosecutors knew that the information would become open eventually, and did not object then.

The judge appeared irked that the government was now objecting to the information becoming public and was raising the issue of classified information "for the first time ever."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Forge said government lawyers decided after the hearings that they wanted more information kept secret than they first believed was necessary.

Without going into details, Forge told Burns "the scope of the information the government viewed as non-disclosable turned out to be broader" than they originally thought.

Kontogiannis is expected to be a witness in the upcoming trial of his nephew, John Michael, and Poway defense contractor Brent Wilkes. Both are charged with money laundering, and Wilkes is charged with bribing Cunningham in return for lucrative defense contracts. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Ray Granger, the lawyer for Michael, criticized the switch of position by prosecutors. ...

Puzzling too, if you really stop to think about it, was it more than vanity that drove Kontogiannis to seek a presidential pardon via Cunningham (for the price of a yacht)? After all, he'd gotten off without going to jail two times, after pleading guilty to a visa fraud scheme in 1994 in which he and an official at the US embassy in Athens were arrested by the FBI, and after pleading guilty in a local Long Island school board fraud conspiracy scheme in 2000. He'd gotten off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. For what reason did Kontogiannis possibly require or desire or feel entitled to a presidential pardon? Just total chutzpah? Done favors for the right people? Or did the very reason he'd gotten in trouble so often have something to do with authorization for the particular services he rendered? (It's worth noting from the May 10 superseding Wilkes-Foggo indictment, Foggo asking Wilkes to ask Cunningham for help to get a visa for a foreigner who was to help Wilkes deliver on his ill gotten CIA contract to supply water to CIA personnel in Iraq; the people you would think have the magic wands don't always, apparently. They need fixers). How many small-time fraud conspirators who basically get off seek presidential pardons?

More from Marcy Wheeler. " ... Kontogiannis' plea agreement leaves two things mentioned--but unexplained: the nature of the other money laundering Kontogiannis admitted to--but was not charged on, and his reason for bribing Cunningham in the first place. ..."

See this update.

A new poll reveals this presidency is still over. 75% say country on wrong track, fewer than 1 in 5 say country going in the right direction, "the lowest number since CBS News first asked the question in 1983. ... 'Americans don't only disapprove of the president; they overwhelmingly see the country as on the wrong track,' says CBS' news director of surveys, Kathy Frankovic." More from McClatchy's Ron Hutchison.

Another Justice Department official resigns. Will the last person left at the Justice Department please turn out the lights?

In the refused subpoena fracas, here's an option I wasn't aware that Congress may have. From a DC attorney: "The interesting question, at least to me, is how Congress goes about responding to this assertion of privilege. Frankly, it seems to me that the offer of non-public testimony from White House officials is pretty reasonable, although I see no reason why there shouldn’t be a transcript. Assuming, however, that it is impossible to work out an accommodation, Congress has basically two legal options: (1) passing a contempt resolution under 2 USC 194, which is the standard method of enforcing congressional subpoenas, but is ineffective against the executive branch because it requires the cooperation of the US attorney or (2) filing a civil action against Sara Taylor and Harriet Miers, who, as former employees, may not enjoy the same protections as current executive branch personnel, or against the executive branch. If the Congress decides to pursue a civil remedy, it could be a pretty interesting case." Presumably Andrew Card is in the same situation as other officials who have already left the administration?

Actually a quite interesting article about what the genetic history of cats reveals. " ... The consequence of one other feline behavior -- the average cat's uncertainty about whether it wants to be indoors or out -- was also written in the genes Driscoll studied. ... " And like our cat who came to America on the Istanbul-NY Delta flight, almost all domestic cats it turns out are descended from wild ones who adopted those humans near big grain stores in the Near East 12,000 years ago, and whose increasingly domesticated descendants were taken further afield to hunt the occasional mouse.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo): "This is an amendment in search of a press release. We know what branch of government [Cheney] belongs to, no matter how confusing that may seem, there are only three, we know which one he's part of."

A British friend sends along some news about Gordon Brown's new cabinet, and subcabinet:

... "The former United Nations deputy secretary-general and one-time spokesman for Kofi Annan, Sir Mark Malloch Brown, is granted a peerage in order to take up the post of minister for Africa, Asia and the UN. He will not have Cabinet rank but will attend Cabinet meetings."

Interesting advantages of not having a Constitution: "The Prime Minister's spokesman said Mr Brown did not see the need for a Deputy Prime Minister."

Immigration bill goes down to defeat. Kathryn Lopez explains why all the switches the WH thought it had in the end. "From a Senate vet: 'Once they knew it would go down, and that this was going to be the last vote recorded on the issue...'"

The Hill's Alexander Bolton: Bush called out for earmarks.

A House Appropriations Committee report accompanying legislation funding the Department of the Interior shows that Bush requested 93 of the 321 earmarks in the bill. A panel report for the financial services and general government spending bill showed that Bush requested 17 special projects worth $947 million, more than any single member of Congress.

Senate appropriators have identified more than 350 earmarks in the military construction spending bill requested by the president.

[Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said yesterday that Bush has requested the overwhelming majority of earmarks — over 800 — in the energy and water appropriations bill.] ...

Lawmakers say these lists of earmarks are inconsistent with Bush’s tough talk on earmarks this year. [...]

“It would appear the administration likes earmarks from their perspective,” said Rep. Robert Aderholt (Ala.), a Republican member of the House Appropriations Committee.

“Inconsistent would be a fair way to say it,” Aderholt said when asked if Bush was being hypocritical for simultaneously requesting and criticizing earmarks.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations interior subcommittee, shares Aderholt’s view.

“Hypocrisy? No, but one might call that duplicity,” said Craig.

Worth bookmarking: Iraq chronicler George Packer is writing a new blog, Interesting Times, at the New Yorker website.

AP: Bush won't supply subpoenaed documents on fired federal prosecutors:

President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor.

In reaction, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy accused the administration of shifting "into Nixonian stonewalling" and revealing "disdain for our system of checks and balances." ...

Reagan-era Justice Department official Bruce Fein in Slate: Impeach Cheney

In the end, President Bush regularly is unable to explain or defend the policies of his own administration, and that is because the heavy intellectual labor has been performed in the office of the vice president. Cheney is impeachable for his overweening power and his sneering contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law.

Fredo Gonzales' light touch. Paul Kiel highlights more evidence of Gonzales' casual attitude to putting people to death without much review, a stance revealed years ago by journalist Alan Berlow. It's worth rereading the Berlow piece as it speaks to so much about what we've recently learned about Gonzales' amiably enabling role in matters from rubberstamping warrantless domestic spying to politicizing the justice department to authorizing torture. As the Post Cheney series part I reveals, Gonzales was apparently content to sign off on whatever memo Addington put in front of him, and seemed glad not to have to do his own homework. He was a man who asked no questions of his political masters, who perfected a stance of going along to get along, which served him well career-promotion-wise in a Bush administration which prized loyalty and yes men above competence across the board. Indeed, it seems that Gonzales modeled himself in part on the governor and president he served, one never terribly concerned about the details, even though you might expect one's lawyer to be a bit more detail oriented. Harvard law degree notwithstanding, legal lightweight? Morally lazy? Without any apparent opinion or conviction on these matters that out of some circumstance ended up in his inbox, Gonzales lightly signed off on these grave issues of killing, torture and subverting the Constitution, perhaps out of no greater motivation than to please his bosses and advance his career.

The WP's Amar Bakshi is traveling around the world, to report on world perceptions on the US, from the UK to Pakistan, India (where he is now) and Iran. Check out his recent text and video dispatches from the UK.

Ann Friedman reports on a legislative amendment being proposed by Norm Coleman and Pete Domenici.

The Washington Institute's Michael Jacobson, a former Treasury Department official, proposes a simple step to tightening Iran sanctions.

Funny.

WP:

... Republicans deflected Democratic demands for troop withdrawal timelines in last month's war funding bill. But Lugar and Warner were among many GOP lawmakers who supported the inclusion of political and military benchmarks and a Sept. 15 deadline for a progress report from the administration. The legislation also required studies aimed at providing Congress with independent views on the conditions in Iraq.

One provision, sponsored by Warner, created a commission of retired four-star officers and other military experts to independently assess whether Iraqi security forces are willing or able to end their own sectarian divisions and take a lead role in defending their country.

Warner said he knows that his push for the measure makes it appear that he does not trust Bush, Petraeus and Crocker to provide an honest report. "I accept that critique," he said in an interview. "But what are we to do? Be totally reliant on the executive branch for their analysis?"

The 14-member commission, headed by retired Gen. James L. Jones, a former Marine commandant and until his retirement last year the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, held its first meeting Friday. It plans several trips to Iraq, and its report to Congress will be timed to provide an alternative to what lawmakers will hear in September from Petraeus and Crocker.

Steve Clemons reports from today's launch of a new think tank, CNAS, which has three new reports out today. Check their site.

White House, Cheney's office, Justice Department and NSC subpoenaed, on warrantless domestic spying. "Our attempts to obtain information through testimony of administration witnesses have been met with a consistent pattern of evasion and misdirection," Senate Judiciary committee chairman Patrick Leahy wrote in his letters accompanying the subpoenas. "There is no legitimate argument for withholding the requested materials from this committee." The four parties "have until July 18 to comply," the AP reports. Spencer Ackerman explains what exactly the Senate Judiciary committee wants to see.

More from the Post, and the NYT's James Risen:

The panel’s action was the most aggressive so far by lawmakers investigating the wiretapping program since the Democrats gained control of Congress in January. It follows Senate testimony in May by a former deputy attorney general, James Comey, who described with cinematic sweep a major showdown over the legality of the program that took place at the hospital bedside of John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, in March 2004.

Mr. Comey’s testimony seemed to reinvigorate congressional interest in scrutinizing the warrantless wiretapping program, since he detailed sharp disagreements within the administration over whether the program was illegal.

Before his testimony, the White House had been able to fend off aggressive oversight of the program because many Democrats were afraid to be cast as soft on terrorism.

But Mr. Comey’s account of the confrontation between senior White House aides and Justice Department officials has given Democrats an opening to argue that their focus is on whether President Bush violated the law and ignored the advice of the Justice Department.

The Senate panel has been asking the administration for documents related to the wiretapping program since Mr. Comey testified. But the White House did not respond to the committee’s oral or written requests. As a result, the panel voted last Thursday to authorize Mr. Leahy to issue subpoenas, and he issued them today.

Politico's Mike Allen: Dems force Cheney flip-flop on secret docs.

Jonah Goldberg echoes a point others, notably, Bruce Fein, have made, about Cheney's efforts to make end runs around the bureaucracy and process: "There's the rub of democratic government. Sure, the act of building consensus often requires sacrificing on your most preferred policies. But such consensus-building actually persuades the public, the bureaucracy and legislators of the necessity to act and reduces the chances they'll turn their back on the whole effort. The Cheney method instead creates a blowback that hobbles your efforts in the long run far more than compromise does."

WP, Part IV: Cheney v. the Environment.

"It was Cheney's insistence on easing air pollution controls, not the personal reasons she cited at the time, that led Christine Todd Whitman to resign as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, she said in an interview that provides the most detailed account so far of her departure. The vice president also pushed to make Nevada's Yucca Mountain the nation's repository for nuclear and radioactive waste, aides said, a victory for the nuclear power industry over those with long-standing safety concerns. And his office was a powerful force behind the White House's decision to rewrite a Clinton-era land-protection measure that put nearly a third of the national forests off limits to logging, mining and most development, former Cheney staff members said."

Woodward on what the family jewels reveal about the CIA's role in Watergate, and in Helms' covering it up.

DC's much-in-the-news deputy mayor for education Victor Reinoso was robbed at gunpoint last night. And then?

This morning, Reinoso was dealing with the fallout of the robbery. He arrived at the D.C. government building and was stopped by a security guard.

"Sir, I need to see some ID," the guard said.

"I don't have any identification," Reinoso replied. "I was held up at gunpoint last night."

The guard was unimpressed and waited for Reinoso to produce identification.

"I'm the deputy mayor," Reinoso pleaded. Then he pointed to a Washington Post reporter standing nearby and said: "She can vouch for me."

"Can you vouch for him?" the security guard asked.

"Yes," the reporter said, at which point Reinoso was able to enter the building.

NYT: New scrutiny as immigrants die in US custody. "In the case of Ms. Kenley, a legal permanent resident of the United States for more than 30 years, detention interrupted her medical care for high blood pressure, a fibroid tumor and uterine bleeding. An autopsy attributed her death to an enlarged heart from chronic hypertensive disease. But a report by emergency medical services said that she had fallen from a top bunk, and that a cellmate had pounded on the door for 20 minutes before guards responded." Just appalling.

Pincus on the ex- FISA chief judge.

AP: "BAE Systems PLC said Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Justice has begun an investigation of the company's dealings with Saudi Arabia. BAE's brief announcement said the investigation related to the company's compliance with anti-corruption laws."

Sally Quinn: A GOP plan to oust Cheney:

The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office. Even before this week's blockbuster series in The Post, discontent in Republican ranks was rising.

As the reputed architect of the war in Iraq, Cheney is viewed as toxic, and as the administration's leading proponent of an attack on Iran, he is seen as dangerous. As long as he remains vice president, according to this thinking, he has the potential to drag down every member of the party -- including the presidential nominee -- in next year's elections.

Removing a sitting vice president is not easy, but this may be the moment. I remember Barry Goldwater sitting in my parents' living room in 1973, in the last days of Watergate, debating whether to lead a group of senior Republicans to the White House to tell President Nixon he had to go. His hesitation was that he felt loyalty to the president and the party. But in the end he felt a greater loyalty to his country, and he went to the White House.

Today, another group of party elders, led by Sen. John Warner of Virginia, could well do the same. They could act out of concern for our country's plummeting reputation throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East.

For such a plan to work, however, they would need a ready replacement. Until recently, there hasn't been an acceptable alternative to Cheney -- nor has there been a persuasive argument to convince President Bush to make a change. Now there is.

The idea is to install a vice president who could beat the Democratic nominee in 2008. It's unlikely that any of the top three Republican candidates -- former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Sen. John McCain of Arizona or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney -- would want the job, for fear that association with Bush's war would be the kiss of death.

Nor would any of them be that attractive to the president. ...

That leaves Fred Thompson. Everybody loves Fred. He has the healing qualities of Gerald Ford and the movie-star appeal of Ronald Reagan. He is relatively moderate on social issues. He has a reputation as a peacemaker and a compromiser. And he has a good sense of humor.

He could be just the partner to bring out Bush's better nature -- or at least be a sensible voice of reason. .. Not only that, Thompson would give the Republicans a platform for running for the presidency -- and the president a way out of Iraq without looking like he's backing down. Bush would be left in better shape on the war and be able to concentrate on AIDS and the environment in hopes of salvaging his legacy.

Cheney is scheduled this summer for surgery to replace his pacemaker, which needs new batteries. So if the president is willing, and Republicans are able, they have a convenient reason to replace him: doctor's orders. And I'm sure the the vice president would also like to spend more time with his ever-expanding family. ...

Also interesting this is running during the Post Cheney series that while describing the VP at the height of his powers, reads like a political obituary. One reason: his power is diminished enough that a lot of insiders and ex insiders and people are talking in almost testimonial detail about some of the darkest decisions made in the White House.

Quinn's scenario seems unlikely to me -- beyond there's no sign Bush is trying to get rid of Cheney, is it Constitutional to just handpick someone to be VP?

But as I remember, Quinn did accurately predict before the November midterms that Rummy would leave afterwards. " ... I suspect that he has already told the president and Cheney that he will leave after the midterm elections, saying that the country needs new leadership to wind down the war. ..." A seemingly speculative musing that may have been sourced by Rumsfeld himself, or someone quite close to him.

And she echoes what I was thinking the other day --that the scenario she describes would leave Bush "in better shape to concentrate on Aids and the environment" to try to salvage his legacy.

I guess we'll have to keep an eye on Kremlinological developments with Cheney's health.

Thx to reader JG for the heads up.

ABC: Lockerbie verdict could be sent to appeals court. Recent report in the London Review of Books that there was suppressed exculpatory evidence for the Libyan agent convicted in the case, and suppressed evidence pointing in another direction, to a PFLP-GC agent in Syria. "In July 1988, five months before the Lockerbie bombing, a US naval commander aboard USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf shot down an Iranian airbus [killing] ....270 pilgrims en route to Mecca. ...The suggestion is that the PFLP-GC was commissioned to undertake a retaliatory bombing. ...Most significantly, German federal police have provided financial records showing that on 23 December 1988, two days after the bombing, the Iranian government deposited £5.9 million into a Swiss bank account that belonged to the arrested members of the PFLP-GC. The decision to steer the investigation away from the PFLP-GC and in the direction of Libya came in the run-up to the first Gulf War, as America was looking to rally a coalition to liberate Kuwait and was calling for support from Iran and Syria. ..." Lots of other interesting twists and turns, including bizarre things that happened to those US intelligence officials and invetigators who maintained evidence on this theory. And this: "At least four US intelligence officers, including the CIA’s deputy station chief in Beirut, were on the Flight 103 passenger list. In the days following the bombing, CIA agents scoured the Scottish countryside, some reportedly dressed in Pan Am overalls. Mary Boylan, then a constable with Lothian and Borders police, has said that senior police officers told her not to make an official record of the CIA badge she recovered from the wreckage, asking her instead to hand it over to a senior colleague. Her testimony, too, is now in the hands of the SCCRC. Jim Wilson, a farmer from the village of Tundergarth, reported shortly after the bombing that he had found in his field a suitcase packed with a powdery substance that looked ‘like drugs’. He last saw the suitcase when he handed it over to the police, he said; he was never asked about it again."

E.J. Dionne: The Real Iraq Debate Begins.

Post Cheney Part III.

Running through some of the threads below, is the question: was then-deputy now solicitor general Paul Clement sent by OVP in person to ask to reconsider his ruling the judge who ruled that Padilla be given access to counsel? Or did he just file a motion? or both?

The language of the Post piece would seem to indicate that Clement, against his better judgment, was sent by OVP, to actually go ask the judge in person to reconsider his opinion and order:

WP: "When a U.S. District Court ruled several months later that Padilla had a right to counsel, Cheney's office insisted on sending Olson's deputy, Paul Clement, on what Justice Department lawyers called 'a suicide mission': to tell Judge Michael B. Mukasey that he had erred so grossly that he should retract his decision. Mukasey derided the government's "pinched legalism" and added acidly that his order was 'not a suggestion or request.'"

A Washington attorney writes, "Under ordinary circumstances, it would be almost certainly unethical for a lawyer for one side in a dispute to go to a judge ex parte ­– without the other side’s counsel present – to argue that something be done in a case. There are the narrowest of exceptions of this principle – e.g., when a party seeks a TRO to prevent another party from destroying property, or something of the sort – but none would seem to apply here. Sending Clement to the judge’s chambers for an ex parte conversation would have been a different sort of suicide mission, the sort of thing that would hurt his career. For that reason, I would suspect that Clement was told to file another motion, and that the article was drafted by someone who was being less than completely precise."

Another attorney S wrote earlier this afternoon, "It's beyond debate that the government filed a motion for reconsideration in the Padilla case. (The notion that Paul Clement went to visit the judge privately seems absurd -- he's a stand up guy, and wouldn't participate in unethical ex parte contacts.)"

I'd be curious if someone has more information, about whether Clement had an ex parte conversation with the judge, or just filed a motion of reconsideration, or both. The reason I would give credence to the former, is that clearly Clement was so bothered by what he was asked to do that - it's described as kind of morally traumatic experience for him in the Post. A "suicide mission." Would having to file the motion for reconsideration itself be considered a "suicide mission?" Perhaps just having to file the motion for reconsideration and being ridiculed by the judge was troubling for him, but I'd be curious if anyone knows more.

Another attorney friend, who also asks not to be quoted by name, notes something else strange about the Padilla docket (among the strange things about the Padilla docket is that no one can find -- so far -- the actual PACER filing of the motion for reconsideration that Clement was apparently asked to file): "One peculiar thing about the the Padilla docket is that normally on PACER there are hyperlinks allowing one to access PDF files of the actual content underlying every docket entry (unless filed under seal or excessively large) whereas NOTHING on the Padilla docket is linked (I logged into PACER myself). Might warrant a call to the SDNY clerk's office to ask why that is the case."

Reader S wrote earlier, "As for why no one has found the motion for reconsideration -- I've run into this problem with [Southern District of NY] SDNY before -- their system in 2002 didn't include full documents in the docket reports. I don't know why SDNY was behind the curve; many other courts were more up to speed on providing electronic access to documents."

So, does that explain why the Padilla docket on the PACER system lacks the links to the underlying PDF documents? and nobody can find the actual motion for reconsideration filing?

Two other questions: Why did the Post not mention that James Comey was reportedly with Clement in asking for the judge to reconsider his order? [Comey who has had something to say recently about the OVP's role in a meeting at which he indicated he would refuse to reauthorize the warrantless domestic spying program, that was followed the next day by the Saturday night massacre-style scene at a near comatose Ashcroft's hosptial bedside].

Another thing: As one of the attorneys above wrote, "I would be astonished if he [Clement] went in ex parte, not least because he’d have a hard time getting in the doors of most judge’s chambers unless they had a personal connection. If you were going to try to run that down, I would look at who the judge was, and where their paths might have intersected before each held their current job. But Clement is so young that – not knowing the first thing about the judge – I would be surprised if they were contemporaries." Anyone know if Clement had some prior relationship with Mukasey that would explain why they would send him (if they actually sent him)?

Update: One of the attorneys above responds:

The language in the Post article about telling Mukasey that “he had erred so grossly” sounds like a legal argument echoing the legal standard for a motion for reconsideration – the way a reporter might rephrase that standard. I would surmise that if they tried a back channel to the judge, it wouldn’t be to present a legal argument, but to say something like, ‘we can’t tell you why but it’s really important for national security that you do x.’ (And if that was the pitch, someone like Clement wouldn’t be the most effective salesman – someone with national security credentials would be. But now I’m really speculating.)

Update II: DC attorney M writes in to reiterate his sense that there was likely no ex parte meeting between Clement and the judge. "In the context of the article, I think the reporter is using the quote to support his point that Cheney and his allies had 'set the government on a path to for defeat in court.' While Olson and his allies argued for 'modest shifts' that would make the courts more receptive to the government’s position without materially affecting what the government wanted to do, the VP insisted on making the broadest possible assertions of executive authority, even after it was evident that the courts were not buying these assertions. If the reporter had been claiming a back channel attempt to influence (much less 'strong arm') the judge, I think that the story would make a much bigger deal of this than it actually does. Presumably, if something improper had occurred, the judge would have blown the whistle. And it is difficult to believe that Clement, who presumably wants to keep practicing law after he leaves the government, would agree to be part of something that could get him disbarred. Finally, as someone else pointed out, if one wanted to send a back channel emissary to the judge, Clement (who looks like he was born around the time the judge was appointed to the bench) would be a very odd choice."

I'm fairly convinced from the high powered attorneys who have written in with their read of the piece that it is highly unlikely there was an ex parte meeting between Clement and the judge, but would say that the way the Post graph was written for an ordinary mortal seemed to suggest just such a highly unusual conversation.

Press release from Freedom House: "Freedom House today urged President Bush to unequivocally ban the use of torture or other cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment by any official or individual working for or on behalf of the U.S. government. 'While the Bush administration has made a priority of advancing individual freedom around the world, it has undermined the effectiveness of that commitment through its attempts to circumvent international legal standards in its detention and interrogation policies,' said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House. 'The most important action that President Bush can take today is to clearly and unambiguously ban the use of torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading punishment by any U.S. official – anywhere in the world.'" More here. More related.

I'm posting the Padilla docket, sent by a reader, and posted below the fold. Can you tell from it how long between the judge's second order (03/11/2003, first was 12/04/2002) that Padilla have access to counsel that he gets to see counsel?

Update: Reader A writes that, according to the Wikipedia timeline, the first time Padilla sees counsel is March 3, 2004 -- about a year after the judge's second order that he get access to a lawyer. One of his attorneys says the first time she saw Padilla was a year after that, in April 2005.

U.S. District Court
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Foley Square)
CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 1:02-cv-04445-DAB

Padilla v. Rumsfeld, et al
Assigned to: Judge Deborah A. Batts
Demand: $0
Cause: 28:2241 Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus (federa
Date Filed: 06/12/2002
Date Terminated: 11/17/2006
Jury Demand: None
Nature of Suit: 530 Habeas Corpus (General)
Jurisdiction: Federal Question
Petitioner
Jose Padilla represented by Andrew G. Patel
Law Office of Andrew G. Patel
111 Broadway, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10006
212-349-0230
Fax: 212-346-4665
Email: AGPATEL@AOL.COM
LEAD ATTORNEY

Donna R. Newman
121 West 27th Street
Suite 1103
New York, NY 10001
(212) 229-1516
LEAD ATTORNEY

V.

Respondent
United States of America

Defendant
George W. Bush

Defendant
Donald H. Rumsfeld

Defendant
Commander M. A. Marr

Date Filed # Docket Text
06/12/2002 Magistrate Judge James C. Francis is so designated. (jol) (Entered: 06/14/2002)

06/12/2002 2 ORDER, petitioner has submitted a petition for writ of habeas that contains material pertaining to a grand jury proceeding which will be filed under seal. The parties have agreed that the attached redacted copy of the petition may be publicly filed. Accordingly, the Clerk of the Court is directed to open this matter as a new civil action and serve a copy of this order and the redacted copy of the petition on the Secretary of Defense in care of Paul W. Cobb, Jr., Deputy General Counsel, Department of Defense, Pentagon, Room 3C975, 1600 Defense Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 20310-1600. As agreed to by the parties the government will file a motion to dismiss or transfer the petition by 6/21/02. Answering papers are to be served by 7/2/02. A reply may be served by 7/9/02. Copies mailed via certified mail #7000-1530-0005-4709-9705 on 6/14/02. . ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey on 6/12/02). (ph) Modified on 06/14/2002 (Entered: 06/14/2002)

06/12/2002 1 PETITION for writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 USC 2241. (jol) Modified on 06/26/2002 (Entered: 06/26/2002)

06/12/2002 CJA 20 APPOINTMENT OF AND AUTHORITY TO PAY COURT APPOINTED COUNSEL as to Jose Padilla. Appointment of Attorney Donna R. Newman. ( Signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ) (moc) (Entered: 06/26/2002)

06/12/2002 CJA 20 APPOINTMENT OF AND AUTHORITY TO PAY COURT APPOINTED COUNSEL as to Jose Padilla . Appointment of Attorney Andrew G. Patel ( Signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ) (moc) (Entered: 06/26/2002)

06/17/2002 3 SEALED DOCUMENT placed in vault. (js) (Entered: 06/18/2002)

06/20/2002 4 AMENDED PETITION FOR Writ of Habeas Corpus by Jose Padilla amending [1-1] petition. (ae) (Entered: 06/28/2002)

06/20/2002 5 AFFIDAVIT OF SERVICE of Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus as to U.S.A. by hand delivery c/o U.S. Attorney's officer at One Saint Andrew's Plaza, w/ enclosed sealed envelope addressed to the following people: Eric Bruce, Esq., Asst. U.S. Atty.; John Ashcroft, Atty. General; George W. Bush, President of the U.S.; Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense; Commander M.A. Marr; Cosolidated Naval Brig on 6/20/02. Answer to Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus due on 7/10/02 for U.S.A. (ae) (Entered: 06/28/2002)

06/26/2002 6 NOTICE OF MOTION by U.S.A.; for an order to dismiss the amended petition for writ of habeas corpus . No Return Date (Filed in the night deposit on 6/26/02 at 7:18 p.m.) (ae) Modified on 06/28/2002 (Entered: 06/27/2002)

06/26/2002 7 ORDER, Deadline for filing of the govt's motion to dismiss or transfer the amended petition by 6/26/02; Response to motion deadline 7/11/02; Reply to response to motion deadline 7/18/02 ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); Copies mailed. (cd) Modified on 06/28/2002 (Entered: 06/27/2002)

07/12/2002 8 NOTICE OF MOTION for leave to file Brief as Amici Curiae, by NYS Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers ; Return Date 7/22/02 at 9:30; attached is the prospective brief (cd) Modified on 07/16/2002 (Entered: 07/16/2002)
07/18/2002 9 REPLY by U.S.A. in support of their: [6-1] motion for an order to dismiss the amended petition for writ of habeas corpus. Received in night deposit box on 7/18/02 at 10:55 p.m. (yv) Modified on 07/22/2002 (Entered: 07/22/2002)

08/12/2002 10 ORDER, for Paul D. Clement to appear pro hac vice for respondent ; Deadline for filing of respondent motion (merits) by 8/23/02; Response to motion deadline 9/13/02; Reply to response to motion deadline 9/20/02 ( signed by Chief Judge B. Mukasey ); Copies mailed; forwarded orig. doc. to the Attorney Admissions Clerk (cd) Modified on 08/14/2002 (Entered: 08/13/2002)

08/27/2002 12 RESPONSE by U.S.A. Re: [4-1] amended petition. Received in night deposit box on 8/27/02 at 7:53 p.m. (yv) (Entered: 09/04/2002)
09/03/2002 11 Transcript of record of proceedings before Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey for the date(s) of July 31, 2002. (jw) (Entered: 09/03/2002)
09/19/2002 15 Letter filed by U.S.A. addressed to Clerk of Court from Paul D. Clement, dated 9/19/02, re: Mobbs Declaration. Mobbs Declaration attached. (dle) (Entered: 09/30/2002)

09/24/2002 13 ORDER, the American Civil Liberties Union is granted leave to file an amicus curiae brief in this matter. The Clerk of the Court is directed to receive and file such a brief ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (cd) (Entered: 09/26/2002)

09/26/2002 14 ORDER; on application by petitioner, and consent of respondent, the statement in the 5/8/02, affidavit in support of the material witness warrant herein to the effect that petitioner indicated he was unwilling to become a martyr is unsealed . ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ) (Copy forwarded to Sealed Records Clerks) (sn) Modified on 09/26/2002 (Entered: 09/26/2002)

09/26/2002 17 BRIEF by Jose Padilla in support of [4-1] amended petition, and in response to [6-1] motion for an order to dismiss the amended petition for writ of habeas corpus. Received in the night deposit box on 9/26/02 at 6:35 p.m. (sb) Modified on 10/03/2002 (Entered: 10/03/2002)

09/26/2002 18 BRIEF submitted on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, New York Civil Liberties Union and Center for National Security Studies as Amici Curiae. (sb) (Entered: 10/03/2002)

09/27/2002 16 SUPPLEMENTAL BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE by The N.Y.S. Assoc. of Criminal Defense Lawyers adn the Natl. Assoc. of Criminal Defense Lawyers (pl) (Entered: 10/02/2002)

10/11/2002 19 REPLY by U.S.A. to response to [6-1] motion for an order to dismiss the amended petition for writ of habeas corpus; (docmt received in night dep. at 6:10 p.m. on 10/11/02) (djc) (Entered: 10/22/2002)

10/21/2002 20 Letter filed by Jose Padilla addressed to Judge Mukasey from Donna R. Newman, dated 10/16/02, re: petitioner's status as an enemy combatant (cd) (Entered: 10/24/2002)

10/21/2002 21 ORDER; At the court's request, the parties will submit further briefs on the issues of petitioner's right to counsel and the propriety of the government's sealed affidavit, and the government will address, to the extent it wishes, the issues raised in petitioner's sur-reply submission, by 10/28/02. The parties may submit replies by 10/31/02 . ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (kg) (Entered: 10/24/2002)

10/22/2002 23 Letter filed by Jose Padilla addressed to Judge Mukasey from Andrew G. Patel, Esq., dated 8/28/02, re: requesting that the Court not yet consider what the Government describes as "a classified verison of the Mobbs Declaration..." (kw) (Entered: 10/30/2002)

10/22/2002 24 Letter filed by U.S.A. addressed to Judge Mukasey from Paul D. Clement, dated 8/29/02, re: in response to defense counsel's 8/28/02 letter. (kw) (Entered: 10/30/2002)

10/22/2002 25 Letter filed by Jose Padilla addressed to Judge Mukasey from Andrew G. Patel, Esq., dated 9/6/02, re: in reply to the Government's letter dated 8/29/02. (kw) (Entered: 10/30/2002)

10/28/2002 22 ORDER; petitioner will serve the government 10/28/02, by electronic mail with the brief required by the Court's 10/21/02 Order , and petitioner will file that brief with the Court on 10/29/02, so that he can include therewith a document cited in the brief but not yet received by petitioner's counsel . This procedure will enable the government to receive petitioner's arguments and respond to them, as provided in the 10/21/02 Order, by 10/31/02 . ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ) (sn) (Entered: 10/28/2002)

10/28/2002 26 RESPONSE to this Court's 10/21/02 Order by U.S.A. (pl) (Entered: 10/30/2002)

10/29/2002 27 SUPPLEMENTAL MEMORANDUM OF LAW by Jose Padilla re: appointment of counsel (cd) (Entered: 10/31/2002)

11/01/2002 28 ORDER, The caption of this action is amended to read: Jose Padilla v. George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Commander M.A. Marr. The parties' request to extend by one day the deadline for reply papers is granted, and those papers will be submitted by 11/1/02. ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ) (sb) (Entered: 11/04/2002)

11/01/2002 29 RESPONSE by U.S.A. Re: [27-1] memorandum (cd) (Entered: 11/06/2002)

11/01/2002 30 SUPPLEMENTAL REPLY MEMORANDUM by Jose Padilla. (sac) (Entered: 11/06/2002)

12/04/2002 31 OPINION and ORDER #87780; Newman may pursue this petition as next fried to Padilla, and the govermemt's motion to dismiss for lack of standing therefore is denied ; Secretary Rumsfeld is the proper respondent in this case, and ths court has jurisdiction over him, as well as jurisdiction to hear this case, and the government's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction is denied ; the Government's motion to transfer to South Carolina, is denied ; the President is authorized under the Constitution and by law to direct the military to detain enemy combatants in the circumstances present here, such that Padilla's detention is not per se unlawful ; the Court will not at this time use the document submitted in camera to determine whether the government has met the standard as stated in this memorandum opinion ; the parties will discuss and arrange the conditions for defense counsel's consultaiton with Padilla and will attend a conference on 12/30/02 at 9:15 a.m. in Courtroom 21B of the United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, NY, NY NY, NY 10007, to report on the results of those discussions and arrangements, and to schedule further proceedings in this case ; ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (djc) (Entered: 12/04/2002)

12/06/2002 32 Transcript of record of proceedings before Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey for the date(s) of 10/21/02. (dt) (Entered: 12/06/2002)
12/26/2002 33 ORDER, the conference scheduled in the case is adjourned to 1/15/03 at 9:15 a.m. in Room 21B of the US Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, New York, NY 10007 ; Respondents are to serve their written submission by 1/8/03. If necessary, the Court will establish at the 1/15/03 conference a date by which petitioner is to respond to that submission . ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (kw) (Entered: 12/27/2002)

01/09/2003 34 ORDER, on respondents' unopposed application on 1/8/03 the time in which respondents are to serve their written submission is extended to 1/9/03. The parties are reminded that a conference will be held in the case on 1/15/03 at 9:15 a.m. in Room 21B. ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (cd) Modified on 01/14/2003 (Entered: 01/13/2003)

01/09/2003 35 NOTICE OF MOTION by Donald H. Rumsfeld, M. A. Marr for reconsideration of [31-1] order Newman may pursue this petition as next fried to Padilla, and the govermemt's motion to dismiss for lack of standing therefore is denied, [31-2] order Secretary Rumsfeld is the proper respondent in this case, and ths court has jurisdiction over him, as well as jurisdiction to hear this case, and the government's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction is denied, [31-3] order the Government's motion to transfer to South Carolina, is denied, [31-4] order the President is authorized under the Constitution and by law to direct the military to detain enemy combatants in the circumstances present here, such that Padilla's detention is not per se unlawful, [31-5] order the Court will not at this time use the document submitted in camera to determine whether the government has met the standard as stated in this memorandum opinion, [31-6] order the parties will discuss and arrange the conditions for defense counsel's consultaiton with Padilla and will attend a conference on 12/30/02 at 9:15 a.m. in Courtroom 21B of the United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, NY, NY NY, NY 10007, to report on the results of those discussions and arrangements, and to schedule further proceedings in this case, [31-7] order . Return Date not indicated. Received in night deposit box on 1/9/03 at 9:23 p.m. (yv) (Entered: 01/14/2003)

01/13/2003 36 RESPONSE by Jose Padilla to [35-1] motion for reconsideration of [31-1] order Newman may pursue this petition as next fried to Padilla, and the govermemt's motion to dismiss for lack of standing therefore is denied, [31-2] order Secretary Rumsfeld is the proper respondent in this case, and ths court has jurisdiction over him, as well as jurisdiction to hear this case, and the government's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction is denied, [31-3] order the Government's motion to transfer to South Carolina, is denied, [31-4] order the President is authorized under the Constitution and by law to direct the military to detain enemy combatants in the circumstances present here, such that Padilla's detention is not per se unlawful, [31-5] order the Court will not at this time use the document submitted in camera to determine whether the government has met the standard as stated in this memorandum opinion, [31-6] order the parties will discuss and arrange the conditions for defense counsel's consultaiton with Padilla and will attend a conference on 12/30/02 at 9:15 a.m. in Courtroom 21B of the United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, NY, NY NY, NY 10007, to report on the results of those discussions and arrangements, and to schedule further proceedings in this case, [31-7] order (sac) (Entered: 01/15/2003)

01/15/2003 37 AFFIRMATION of Andrew G. Patel by Jose Padilla. (db) (Entered: 01/22/2003)

01/21/2003 38 ORDER, respondents are to serve answering papers to petitioner's cross-motion to strike their motion for reconsideration ; respondents' Reply to Response to Motion set for 5:00 p.m. on 1/22/03 re: [35-1] motion for reconsideration of [31-1] order Newman may pursue this petition as next fried to Padilla, and the govermemt's motion to dismiss for lack of standing therefore is denied, [31-2] order Secretary Rumsfeld is the proper respondent in this case, and ths court has jurisdiction over him, as well as jurisdiction to hear this case, and the government's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction is denied, [31-3] order the Government's motion to transfer to South Carolina, is denied, [31-4] order the President is authorized under the Constitution and by law to direct the military to detain enemy combatants in the circumstances present here, such that Padilla's detention is not per se unlawful, [31-5] order the Court will not at this time use the document submitted in camera to determine whether the government has met the standard as stated in this memorandum opinion, [31-6] order the parties will discuss and arrange the conditions for defense counsel's consultaiton with Padilla and will attend a conference on 12/30/02 at 9:15 a.m. in Courtroom 21B of the United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, NY, NY NY, NY 10007, to report on the results of those discussions and arrangements, and to schedule further proceedings in this case, [31-7] order. A reply as to the cross-motion may be served by 5:00 p.m. on 1/29/03 . ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (kw) (Entered: 01/23/2003)

01/22/2003 39 REPLY MEMORANDUM by U.S.A., George W. Bush, Donald H. Rumsfeld, M. A. Marr in support of [6-1] motion for an order to dismiss the amended petition for writ of habeas corpus. Received in the night deposit box on 1/22/03 at 5:14 p.m. (sb) (Entered: 01/28/2003)
01/29/2003 41 REPLY by Jose Padilla submitted in further support of petitoners' motion to strike respondent's motion for reconsideration in part ("motion") and/or deny respondent's motion on its merits. (jco) (Entered: 02/04/2003)
01/30/2003 40 ORDER, the caption of this case is amended as set forth in this Order ; Petitioner is to file and serve the "written response" referred to in footnote 1 on page 1 of his reply memorandum by 5:00 p.m. on February 5, 2003 ; ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (djc) (Entered: 02/03/2003)
02/06/2003 42 ORDER, that on application by petitioner on 2/5/03, the time in which petitoner is to file and serve the "written response" referred to in footnote 1 on page 1 of his reply memorandum is extended to 5:00 p.m. on 2/7/03 . ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ). (tp) (Entered: 02/07/2003)
02/07/2003 43 MEMORANDUM OF LAW by Jose Padilla re: Some Evidence. (laq) (Entered: 02/13/2003)

02/11/2003 44 BRIEF of AMICI CURIAE by The New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. (db) (Entered: 02/24/2003)

03/03/2003 45 Transcript of record of proceedings before Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey for the date(s) of January 15, 2003. (dt) (Entered: 03/03/2003)

03/11/2003 46 OPINION AND ORDER #03/11/03, granting [35-1] motion for reconsideration of [31-1] order Newman may pursue this petition as next fried to Padilla, and the govermemt's motion to dismiss for lack of standing therefore is denied, [31-2] order Secretary Rumsfeld is the proper respondent in this case, and ths court has jurisdiction over him, as well as jurisdiction to hear this case, and the government's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction is denied, [31-3] order the Government's motion to transfer to South Carolina, is denied, [31-4] order the President is authorized under the Constitution and by law to direct the military to detain enemy combatants in the circumstances present here, such that Padilla's detention is not per se unlawful, [31-5] order the Court will not at this time use the document submitted in camera to determine whether the government has met the standard as stated in this memorandum opinion, [31-6] order the parties will discuss and arrange the conditions for defense counsel's consultaiton with Padilla and will attend a conference on 12/30/02 at 9:15 a.m. in Courtroom 21B of the United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, NY, NY NY, NY 10007, to report on the results of those discussions and arrangements, and to schedule further proceedings in this case, [31-7] order; that the parties will attend a conference at 9:15 a.m. on 3/27/03, in rm 21B , for the purpose of reporting on their consultations in the manner as stated in this Opinion and Order , any party wishing ot apprise the court in writing of any issues remaining after such consultations will do so by 5 p.m. on 3/25/03 . ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (pl) Modified on 03/13/2003 (Entered: 03/12/2003)

03/25/2003 47 Letter filed by Jose Padilla addressed to Judge Mukasey from Andrew G. Patel & Donna R. Newman, dated 3/24/03, re: the conditions involving the the meeting of persons Ms. Newman and Mr. Padilla. (db) (Entered: 03/26/2003)

03/25/2003 48 Letter filed by Jose Padilla addressed to Judge Mukasey from Donna R. Newman, dated 3/24/03, re: objection to respondents request for certification of appeal. (db) (Entered: 03/26/2003)

03/25/2003 49 Letter filed by U.S.A. addressed to Judge Mukasey from James B. Comey, dated 3/20/03, re: continual belief that Mr. Padilla poses danger to the national security of the United States. (db) (Entered: 03/26/2003)

03/31/2003 50 NOTICE OF MOTION by U.S.A., George W. Bush, Donald H. Rumsfeld, M. A. Marr for an order for certification for interlocutory appeal of the Court's 12/4/02 and 3/11/03 orders and for an order for a stay of the proceedings pending resolution of the appeal . No Return Date. Received in the night deposit box on 6:46 p.m. (sb) (Entered: 04/01/2003)

04/03/2003 51 OPPOSITION by Jose Padilla re: [50-1] motion for an order for certification for interlocutory appeal of the Court's 12/4/02 and 3/11/03 orders, [50-2] motion for an order for a stay of the proceedings pending resolution of the appeal (pl) (Entered: 04/07/2003)

04/09/2003 52 OPINION AND ORDER #88333, granting [50-1] motion for an order for certification for interlocutory appeal of the Court's 12/4/02 and 3/11/03 orders; the opinions and orders entered in this case on 12/4/02 and 3/11/03 are deemed amended to include the discussions set forth in this Opinion and Order. ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (pl) (Entered: 04/10/2003)

05/01/2003 53 Transcript of record of proceedings before Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey for the date(s) of 3/27/03. (pr) (Entered: 05/01/2003)
05/12/2003 Documents # 4,12,17 SENT TO THE USCA, ATT. AMY SMITH. (pr) (Entered: 05/12/2003)

05/16/2003 54 Notice that the record on appeal has been certified and transmitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals. (There is no Notice of Appeal filed in U.S. Dictrict Court, Filed 1292(b) in U.S. Court of Appeals. (dt) Modified on 05/16/2003 (Entered: 05/16/2003)

05/16/2003 by U.S.A., George W. Bush, Donald H. Rumsfeld, M. A. Marr, Indexed record on appeal files (03-2235) sent to the U.S.C.A. (dt) (Entered: 05/16/2003)

06/19/2003 55 SEALED DOCUMENT placed in vault. (js) (Entered: 06/19/2003)

06/20/2003 56 True Copy of Order from the USCA RE: Appellant petitions pursuant to 28 USC 1292(b), for leave to appeal the district court orders dated December 4, 2002 and March 11, 2003 and to expedite the interlocutory appeal if permitted. Appellee-cross appellant petitions, pursuant to 1292(b), for leave to appeal the portion of the district court order finding that the President had the authority to order the military to seize and detain Padilla as stated. ORDERED that the petitions are GRANTED AS STATED. It is further ORDERED that the motion to expedite the appeal is GRANTED. Opening briefs by both sides shall be filed no later than July 22, 2003. Response bridfs by both shall be filed by no later than August 12, 2003. Reply brifs by both sides shall be filed by no later than September 1, 2003. Counsel are hereby advised that oral argument in this matter will be heard on a date set by the court no earlier than the week of October 12, 2003. CERTIFIED 6/11/03, 03-2235. MACKECHNIE, CLERK, USCA. (pr) (Entered: 07/02/2003)

07/16/2003 57 SEALED DOCUMENT placed in vault. (js) (Entered: 07/16/2003)

07/16/2003 58 SEALED DOCUMENT placed in vault. (js) (Entered: 07/16/2003)

08/04/2003 59 ORDER; because of the length of this case, petitioner's CJA attorneys, Donna Newman and Andrew Patel, may submit interim vouchers for representation of their client. Ms. Newman and Mr. Patel may be reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses reasonable incurred to their representation. They are to incur no single expense item in excess of $150.00 without making an ex-parte application to the Clerk stating the nature of the expense, the estimated dollar cost, and the reason the expense is necessary to the representation. An application seeking such an approval may be filed in camera, if necessary. Recurring expenses such as telephone toll calls and photocopying which aggregate more than $150.00 on one or more interim vouchers are not considered single expense requiring Court approval ; ( signed by Chief Judge Michael B. Mukasey ); (djc) (Entered: 08/05/2003)

09/30/2003 Terminated documents 6-1, 8-1 pursuant to instructions of Chief Judge Mukasey as indicated on the CJRA report. (rag) (Entered: 10/14/2003)

04/23/2004 60 ENDORSED LETTER addressed to Jduge Michael B. Mukasey from Eric B. Bruce dated 4/20/04 re: Counsel write to request that the affidavit otherwise remain under seal in this Court. So Ordered. (Signed by Judge Michael B. Mukasey on 4/23/04) (jco, ) (Entered: 04/26/2004)

05/05/2006 62 MANDATE of USCA (Certified Copy) USCA Case Number 03-2235(L). 03-2438-(CON). In accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court, Rumsfeld v. Padilla, 542 U.S. 426 (2004), this matter is remanded to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York with directions to dismiss Padilla's petition without prejudice. Roseann B. MacKechnie, Clerk USCA. Issued As Mandate: 5/4/2006. (nd, ) (Entered: 05/08/2006)

05/08/2006 Transmission of USCA Mandate/Order to the District Judge re: [62] USCA Mandate Non-Dismissal,. (nd, ) (Entered: 05/08/2006)

08/03/2006 Non-Appeal Record Returned. Indexed record on Non-Appeal Files USCA Case Number 02-2763, returned from the U.S. Court of Appeals. (nd, ) (Entered: 08/11/2006)

10/16/2006 63 NOTICE OF CASE REASSIGNMENT to Judge Deborah A. Batts. Judge Michael B. Mukasey is no longer assigned to the case. (rag, ) (Entered: 10/17/2006)

10/16/2006 Mailed notice to the attorney(s) of record. (tve, ) (Entered: 10/19/2006)

11/13/2006 64 ORDER; In compliance with the 5/4/06, Mandate of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the petition of Jose Padilla is hereby ordered dismissed without prejudice; the Clerk of the Court is accordingly ordered to close this captioned action. (Signed by Judge Deborah A. Batts on 11/7/06) (pl, ) (Entered: 11/13/2006)

11/13/2006 Transmission to Judgments and Orders Clerk. Transmitted re: [64] Order,, to the Judgments and Orders Clerk. (pl, ) (Entered: 11/13/2006)
11/17/2006 65 CLERK'S JUDGMENT in favor of the respondent dismissing the case without prejudice. (Signed by J. Michael McMahon, Clerk on 11/17/06) (jf, ) (Entered: 11/17/2006)

11/17/2006 Mailed notice of Right to Appeal re: [65] Clerk's Judgment to Attorney(s) of Record: Donna R. Newman, Andrew G. Patel. (tve, ) (Entered: 11/20/2006)

The Center for American Progress has released a new Iraq report, Strategic Reset, co-authored by Brian Katulis and Larry Korb.

Washington DC attorney M writes:

I am not sure how you concluded that the administration tried to “strong arm” a judge to reverse his decision. I read the article to indicate that they sent Clement in to seek reconsideration of the judge’s order, which does not in any way suggest “strong arming” or improperly pressuring the judge. It is, however, a tactic that is highly unlikely to work and therefore was rightly considered a “suicide mission.”

There is nothing improper about filing a motion for reconsideration. It is unusual (but far from unheard of) for two reasons. First, legally the motion is supposed to consist of something more than simply rearguing the same points the judge already rejected (eg, it should show that the judge overlooked some controlling precedent, completely misunderstood the arguments, or something along those lines). Second, as a practical matter, there is little point in re-arguing something the judge has already rejected.

I think the point that the article is trying to make is not that the administration was trying to strong arm the judge, but that Cheney, Addington, et al, insisted on going back to the judge and making the same arguments in more vehement language, a tactic that the legal professionals like Olson realized would be pointless and self-defeating (ie, it would just make the judge madder at the government).

Update: Reader S disagrees:

When I read this bit:

"When a U.S. District Court ruled several months later that Padilla had a right to counsel, Cheney's office insisted on sending Olson's deputy, Paul Clement, on what Justice Department lawyers called "a suicide mission": to tell Judge Michael B. Mukasey that he had erred so grossly that he should retract his decision. "

The verbs "send" and "tell" do indicate, to me, not that Paul Clement was told to file a motion - it is more consistent, I think, with him going to see the Judge and talking with him. If that is correct, it would be more consistent with your initial read of "strong arming" than filing a motion.

Update II: S writes back:

In the mean time I .. found this:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/11/padilla.decision/index.html

It does indeed look like there was an additional motion filed. While this doesn’t preclude a visit, it does support your reader Washington DC attorney M’s interpretation. ...

A federal judge Tuesday ordered the government to allow lawyers to meet with alleged "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, an American citizen accused of being an al Qaeda operative who plotted to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" inside the United States.

The decision is a legal setback for the Bush administration, which sought to block Padilla from meeting his defense lawyers under any circumstances, saying national security is more important than a detainee's right to counsel.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey rejected the government's argument in a 35-page decision, ordering the government to permit Padilla's New York-based attorneys to visit the prisoner, who has been held incommunicado in a South Carolina Navy brig since June.

"Absent agreement, the court will impose conditions," Mukasey wrote. "Lest any confusion remain, this is not a suggestion or a request that Padilla be permitted to consult with counsel, and it is certainly not an invitation to conduct further 'dialogue' about whether he is permitted to do so."

Mukasey scheduled a March 27 court session to settle logistical details for the meetings.

He said Padilla "must have the opportunity to present evidence that undermines" the government's accusations stated publicly by Attorney General John Ashcroft, though no formal charges have ever been filed. "The only practicable way to present evidence, if he has any and chooses to do so, is through counsel," the judge said.

Mukasey is the same judge who ruled last December that the president's use of the "enemy combatant" classification is lawful. He also ruled that defense attorneys should be permitted to visit with Padilla, but Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement and U.S Attorney James Comey asked Mukasey to reconsider that.

"The government's arguments here are permeated with the pinched legalism one usually encounters from non-lawyers," wrote Mukasey, who had signaled his impatience with the government's views at a January hearing.

Check this out.

LAT: "With public support of the war dropping, President Bush has authorized an internal policy review to find a plan that could satisfy opponents without sacrificing his top goals, the officials said. The president and senior officials 'realize they can't keep fighting this over and over,' said one administration official, who along with others declined to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly or because decisions were pending. The Republican White House has not opened formal negotiations with the Democratic-controlled Congress. But some senior administration officials — including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and U.N. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad — have been quietly talking with lawmakers about how to adjust policy in the months ahead. Among other ideas, they have discussed whether the United States should advocate a sharply decentralized Iraq, a notion that has seen a resurgence on Capitol Hill." As the NYT noted obliquely over the weekend, as part of that internal policy review, the White House has also ordered a new NIE on Iraq, that should come out shortly before Petraeus' report.

A Hill staffer sends comment on the Post Cheney revelations:

It reaffirms what everyone knows – that Cheney ... has been running his own government for the past six years. It is not a coup because it has the blessing of a twice-elected President.

The fascinating thing is that, if you talk to any foreign policy conservative today, they absolutely believe that it is Condi Rice who is controlling the reins of power today and that the President is following her every dictate. Just take a look at what John Bolton has been saying – the President is being misguided by the State Department.

Here is one prediction for you: come January 20th, 2009, Mr. Addington will never again be able to leave U.S. soil. He will risk arrest for war crimes offenses and will not have the current diplomatic protections he enjoys today.

One might add the Vice President into that mix, but I suspect no government is willing to risk arrest a former constitutional officer of the United States.

Addington, on the other hand, will be a bureaucratic has been. ....

Here's the second part of the Post's series on Cheney: "Pushing the envelope on presidential power."

Addington was behind the Yoo torture memo:

How extreme? Yoo was summoned again to the White House in the early spring of 2002. This time the question was urgent. The CIA had captured Abu Zubaida, then believed to be a top al-Qaeda operative, on March 28, 2002. Case officers wanted to know "what the legal limits of interrogation are," Yoo said.

This previously unreported meeting sheds light on the origins of one of the Bush administration's most controversial claims. The Justice Department delivered a classified opinion on Aug. 1, 2002, stating that the U.S. law against torture "prohibits only the worst forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" and therefore permits many others. [Read the opinion] Distributed under the signature of Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, the opinion also narrowed the definition of "torture" to mean only suffering "equivalent in intensity" to the pain of "organ failure ..... or even death."

When news accounts unearthed that opinion nearly two years later, the White House repudiated its contents. Some officials described it as hypothetical, without disclosing that the opinion was written in response to specific questions from the CIA. Administration officials attributed authorship to Yoo, a Berkeley law professor who had come to serve in the Office of Legal Counsel.

But the "torture memo," as it became widely known, was not Yoo's work alone. In an interview, Yoo said that Addington, as well as Gonzales and deputy White House counsel Timothy E. Flanigan, contributed to the analysis.

The vice president's lawyer advocated what was considered the memo's most radical claim: that the president may authorize any interrogation method, even if it crosses the line of torture. U.S. and treaty laws forbidding any person to "commit torture," that passage stated, "do not apply" to the commander in chief, because Congress "may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield."

That same day, Aug. 1, 2002, Yoo signed off on a second secret opinion, the contents of which have never been made public. According to a source with direct knowledge, that opinion approved as lawful a long list of specific interrogation techniques proposed by the CIA -- including waterboarding, a form of near-drowning that the U.S. government classified as a war crime in 1947. The opinion drew the line against one request: threatening to bury a prisoner alive.

And this just blows your mind:

In the summer and fall of 2002, some of the Bush administration's leading lawyers began to warn that Cheney and his Pentagon allies had set the government on a path for defeat in court. As the judicial branch took up challenges to the president's assertion of wartime power, Justice Department lawyers increasingly found themselves defending what they believed to be losing positions -- directed by the vice president and his staff. One of the uneasy lawyers was Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson, a conservative stalwart whose wife, Barbara, had been killed less than a year before when the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Olson shared Cheney's robust view of executive authority, but his job was to win cases. Two that particularly worried him involved U.S. citizens -- Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi -- who had been declared enemy combatants and denied access to lawyers.

Federal courts, Olson argued, would not go along with that. But the CIA opposed any outside contact, fearing relief from the isolation and dependence that interrogators relied upon to break the will of suspected terrorists.

Flanigan said that Addington's personal views leaned more toward Olson than against him, but that he beat back the proposal to grant detainees access to lawyers, "because that was the position of his client, the vice president."

Decision time came in a heated meeting in Gonzales's corner office on the West Wing's second floor, according to four officials with direct knowledge, none of whom agreed to be quoted by name about confidential legal deliberations. Olson was backed by associate White House counsel Bradford A. Berenson, a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.

Berenson told colleagues that the court's swing voter would never accept absolute presidential discretion to declare a U.S. citizen an enemy and lock him up without giving him an opportunity to be represented and heard. Another former Kennedy clerk, White House lawyer Brett Kavanaugh, had made the same argument earlier. Addington accused Berenson of surrendering executive power on a fool's prophecy about an inscrutable court. Berenson accused Addington of "know-nothingness."

Gonzales listened quietly as the Justice Department and his own staff lined up against Addington. Then he decided in favor of Cheney's lawyer.

John D. Ashcroft, who was attorney general at the time, declined to discuss details of the dispute but said the vice president's views "carried a great deal of weight. He was the E.F. Hutton in the room. When he talked, everybody would listen." Cheney, he said, "compelled people to think carefully about whatever he mentioned."

When a U.S. District Court ruled several months later that Padilla had a right to counsel, Cheney's office insisted on sending Olson's deputy, Paul Clement, on what Justice Department lawyers called "a suicide mission": to tell Judge Michael B. Mukasey that he had erred so grossly that he should retract his decision. Mukasey derided the government's "pinched legalism" and added acidly that his order was "not a suggestion or request."

Cheney's strategy fared worse in the Supreme Court, where two cases arrived for oral argument alongside Padilla's on April 28, 2004.

This is like court testimony, with plenty of people (including notably, Yoo) willing to point to who precisely in Cheney's office and the White House made what decisions. It seems to be something they have thought carefully about. One senses, not just with an eye towards history.

Monday Update: One other thing, for those of us trying to guess on who the two figures referenced in Blumenthal's piece were. The legal official still at the commanding heights of power in the Bush administration? Am curious about the current solicitor general who got sent by Cheney's office to bully the judge to retract his ruling that Padilla be granted access to counsel. Clement might not have been happy about the order to conduct that "suicide mission."

AP: Rice rejects lowering bar for Iran talks.

A veteran newspaper editor friend has some sharp observations about the Post Cheney piece:

A careful reading of the story of Cheney's coup against a feeble executive reveals that paragraphs 7 through 10 were written and inserted in haste by a powerful editorial hand. The banging of colliding metaphors in an otherwise carefully written piece is evidence of last-minute interpolations by a bad editor whom no one has the power to rewrite.

("Waxing or waning, [moon metaphor], Cheney hold his purchase [grasping image, a monkey?] on an unrivaled portfolio [business metaphor]...." A monkey with a gibbous face clutching a briefcase stuffed with investments?)

(Worse is this garble: "Cheney, they said. inhabits an operational world [?] in which means are matched with ends [is there any other way?] and some of the most important choices are made." [Where's the rest of the sentence? What does this pseudo-sentence even mean?])

That in turn suggests that this piece has been ready to run for some time. Insertions like the one about the veep's office not being part of the executive branch and seriatim "softenings" show that jamming it into the paper at the end of June, when only cats and the homeless are around the read the paper, was made at the last minute.

Why? My guess is that this series ready to go during the debate over the supplemental funding of the Iraq war and that Downie or someone at the top held it back until Gellman and others started carrying snub-nose .38s to work under their seersuckers.

A key element of the coup is also ignored: the role of the press as revealed in the Libby scandal ... : Note in particular paragraph seven the phrase that Cheney's subversive roles "went undetected." The correct verb is "unreported."

This series is a landscape of an internal war. Parts of it are still smoking and some reputations are visibly dying--anonymously, for the moment. The journalistic graves registration people will go in later and tag the corpses.

Update: More hints that the Post series has been in the can for a few months now: its co-author Jo Becker has already moved to the NYT and published a long investigated enterprise piece now on the NYT's front page.

AP: Reagan-appointed-FISA judge criticizes warrantless wiretaping of Americans. "'We have to understand you can fight the war [on terrorism] and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war,' said Royce C. Lamberth, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington and a former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, speaking at the American Library Association's annual convention."

Testing the theory of whether the OVP falls outside the executive branch. More from the Post.

Politico's Mike Allen told NPR that Fred Thompson has a notable foreign policy advisor: first daughter of the OVP, Liz Cheney.

It underlies so many recent news stories, from the anxiety over having it disclosed that the administration is debating shutting Guantanamo, to the OVP claims it is not subject to the rules that govern the executive branch, to the federal appeals court throwing out the White House's legal opinion on enemy combatants. What will be Bush's legacy in the history books?

Being the president on 9/11, and the subsequent expansive powers the Bush White House claimed, some in secret, to conduct its war on terror. Disaster in Iraq after the relatively quick toppling of Saddam Hussein. Hurricane Katrina and the impossibly slow, third world federal response and the loss of much of New Orleans, and only partial recovery. Warrantless domestic spying on Americans. Cheney, and the singular powers and exemption from rule of law his office claimed, and advocacy for torture. Cheney's chief of staff convicted of lying and obstructing justice, and sentenced to prison. Perhaps a presidential commutation of his sentence. The connected story of the administration's faulty claims on WMD in Iraq, and the question of how that came to be.

Overthrowing the Taliban, but failing to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the chief architect of 9/11, and continued instability in Afghanistan. The capture of several al Qaeda terrorists. Guantanamo Bay and the controversy over the administration's shucking the Geneva Conventions and habeas corpus. Abu Ghraib, and the black site prisons. Early talk of promoting democracy in the Middle East followed by US-occupied Iraq slipping into civil conflict and the exponential metastisis of terrorism and al Qaeda in Iraq, and the US working with corrupt and autocratic old stand-by regimes, including two whose citizens perpetrated the 9/11 al Qaeda attacks, to counter a newly dominant Iran, and we haven't seen exactly how that will all play out yet.

Denying global warming for most of his two terms, and bucking Kyoto and serious commitments to reduce global carbon emissions. A Constitutional crisis as the courts pushed back on Bush's claims of unlimited executive authorities to declare US citizens enemy combatants with no Constitutional rights and other issues; and, after the Dems took both houses of Congress in 2006, between the legislative branch and White House that had gotten used to no oversight. Perhaps the US attorneys scandal and the erosion of legitimacy at the Justice Department as the degree of partisan politicization that took hold in Gonzales' Justice Department and other federal agencies was exposed in a series of Congressional hearings, federal investigations and resignations playing out for the last months of Bush's term in office.

If I were a presidential advisor thinking of this list, I would be thinking of something bold and positive I might want Bush to be remembered for, among these other things. It doesn't look like it's going to be immigration reform. Middle East peace may be too hard, especially given recent events, notwithstanding Tony Blair's diplomatic talents, and they clearly aren't counting on it being Iraq as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. I'd pick a major high profile, non-military effort, something achievable, and humanitarian, and in the foreign policy arena, maybe massively increased US assistance to counter poverty and disease and conflict and promote economic development in Africa, and I'd have the president and Rice talking about it a lot. I'd appoint someone -- maybe Powell, or Sachs -- to be the emissary on it. I wonder if they are trying to think of something like that now that the efforts on several other fronts, including immigration reform, are faltering.

Wires: Key US allies consider partial freeze on Iran's nuclear program.

The Talmudic scholars have been parsing the latest White House utterances on whether the Vice President's office is part of the executive branch, and found that, the original ur-Executive Order that governs the preservation of classified data does not exempt that Vice President's office from its decree:

PERINO: If you look on page 18 of the EO, when you have a chance, there’s a distinction regarding the Vice President versus what is an agency. And the President also, as the author of an EO, and the person responsible for interpreting the EO, did not intend for the Vice President to be treated as an agency, and that’s clear.

Last night, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reported that his staff fact-checked Perino’s claim, looked at page 18 of the order, and found Perino’s claim to be false:

OLBERMANN: No exemption at all for the Vice President on page 18. So we emailed the White House, which referred us to section 1.3 — which is about something else altogether — and 5.2 — which makes no mention of the Vice President. In fact, there is no exemption for the President or the Vice President when it comes to reporting on classified material.

More here from the LAT. It seems this is descended from Nixon's "if the president does it, it's legal" philosophy, expanded to include the vice president.

WP: William Mercer resigns, was DOJ #3. That makes it six so far.

AP:

The United States is helping build a prison in Afghanistan that would take some prisoners now at Guantanamo Bay, but the White House said Friday that it was not meant as an alternative to the detainee facility in Cuba.

The Bush administration wants to close Guantanamo Bay and move its terror suspects to prisons elsewhere, but says no decision about the status of the facility is imminent. White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the United States has released about 80 of some 375 detainees, and hopes to transfer several dozen Afghans back to Afghanistan in the near future.

"America does not have any intention of being the world's jailer," Perino said, adding that the administration wants other nations to take their prisoners back, and treat them humanely, but not let them back on the battlefield.

She said President Bush has directed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to work with her counterparts around the world to try to repatriate the detainees to their home countries, make sure that they are held safely and treated humanely and that they are not allowed to perpetrate acts of terrorism.

Senior administration officials said Thursday that a consensus is building for a plan to shut the detention center and transfer detainees to one of more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Perino would not comment on whether detainees were headed to Kansas.

Bush's national security and legal advisers had been scheduled to discuss the move at a meeting Friday, the officials said, but after The Associated Press reported it, the White House said the meeting would not take place that day and no decision on Guantanamo Bay's status is imminent.

Three senior administration officials spoke about the discussions on condition of anonymity because they were internal deliberations.

Perino said the meeting was canceled "very late" on Thursday because it was determined that a "meeting wasn't necessary at this time."

Update: NYT, Bush advisors weigh closing Guantanamo sooner.

More: NBC's Aram Rostom, "Inside Gitmo's harsh world."

Newsweek interviews Ali Larijani, Iran's nuclear negotiator.

Newsweek: Bush at 26%.

The 26 percent rating puts Bush lower than Jimmy Carter, who sunk to his nadir of 28 percent in a Gallup poll in June 1979. In fact, the only president in the last 35 years to score lower than Bush is Richard Nixon. Nixon’s approval rating tumbled to 23 percent in January 1974, seven months before his resignation over the botched Watergate break-in. ...

A record 73 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Bush has done handling Iraq. Despite “the surge” in U.S. forces into Baghdad and Iraq’s western Anbar province, a record-low 23 percent of Americans approve of the president’s actions in Iraq, down 5 points since the end of March.

But the White House cannot pin his rating on the war alone. Bush scores record or near record lows on every major issue: from the economy (34 percent approve, 60 percent disapprove) to health care (28 percent approve, 61 percent disapprove) to immigration (23 percent approve, 63 percent disapprove). And—in the worst news, perhaps, for the crowded field of Republicans hoping to succeed Bush in 2008—50 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of terrorism and homeland security. Only 43 percent approve, on an issue that has been the GOP’s trump card in national elections since 9/11.

LAT: "'Here's a guy who raises 'executive privilege' to historic levels to exempt himself from all rules and oversight, and now he says he's not part of the executive branch?' said [Gordon] Silverstein, [a constitutional scholar at UC Berkeley]. 'Here we have a subordinate part of the executive branch asserting independent constitutional authority even against its own superior. It is flabbergasting.'" Interesting to read coverage of the OVP obstruction story with the family jewels release (.pdf, more). Check out the Silberman parts here, hoping for a leak first as an excuse to continue the cover up.

Update: Balkinization's Sandy Levinson is worth reading on this.

WP:

The CIA will declassify hundreds of pages of long-secret records detailing some of the intelligence agency's worst illegal abuses -- the so-called "family jewels" documenting a quarter-century of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying, kidnapping and infiltration of leftist groups from the 1950s to the 1970s, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday.

The documents, to be publicly released next week, also include accounts of break-ins and theft, the agency's opening of private mail to and from China and the Soviet Union, wiretaps and surveillance of journalists, and a series of "unwitting" tests on U.S. civilians, including the use of drugs. ...

In anticipation of the CIA's release, the National Security Archive at George Washington University yesterday published a separate set of documents from January 1975 detailing internal government deliberations of the abuses. Those documents portray a rising sense of panic within the administration of President Gerald R. Ford that what then-CIA Director William E. Colby called "skeletons" in the CIA's closet had begun to be revealed in news accounts. ...

Interesting. It seems pretty clear there's hardly nothing to the report the White House is denying.

CBS/AP: "While the U.S. military searches for a soldier missing in Iraq, kidnapped by insurgents possibly allied with al Qaeda, his wife back home in Massachusetts may be deported by the U.S. government. .. Her attorney is seeking a hardship waiver, which so far the government won't grant."

Update from the AP, wife no longer to be deported.

RFERL, "IRAN OFFICIAL SAYS GUARDS CORPS UNRELATED TO NUCLEAR PROGRAM":

Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani told a Tehran conference on June 19 that there is no sense in Western powers penalizing Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in connection with Iran's nuclear program, because the force has nothing to do with it, Radio Farda reported, citing the Fars news agency. Larijani told a meeting called "Political Guides Of The Guards Corps" (Hadian-i siasi-yi sepah-i pasdaran) that the link between the IRGC and the nuclear program is "zero" and questioned why IRGC commanders have been banned from traveling abroad in two sets of UN Security Council sanctions against Iran. He said the West has not explained why it includes military and ballistic fields in its sanctions against Iran's nuclear program, but suggested the West is doing this merely because it can. Restrictions on the IRGC, he said, merely make it more popular in Iran. He accused unspecified "critics" inside Iran of sending "signals" to Western powers and prompting them to impose further sanctions. Radio Farda interpreted these to include members of Iran's previous nuclear-dossier negotiating team. These signals, he added, have misled Western powers to believe that sanctions would force Iran to relent in the dispute over its nuclear program, Radio Farda reported.

Mark Benjamin:

... According to congressional sources and mental healthcare professionals knowledgeable about the secret program who spoke with Salon, two CIA-employed psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, were at the center of the program, which likely violated the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. The two are currently under investigation: Salon has learned that Daniel Dell'Orto, the principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Defense, sent a "document preservation" order on May 15 to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top Pentagon officials forbidding the destruction of any document mentioning Mitchell and Jessen or their psychological consulting firm, Mitchell, Jessen and Associates, based in Spokane, Wash. Dell'Orto's order was in response to a May 1 request from Sen. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who is investigating the abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody.

Mitchell and Jessen have worked as contractors for the CIA since 9/11. Both were previously affiliated with the military's SERE program, which at its main school at Fort Bragg puts elite special operations forces through brutal mock interrogations, from sensory deprivation to simulated drowning.

A previously classified report by the Defense Department's inspector general, made public last month, revealed in vivid detail how the military -- in flat contradiction to previous denials -- used SERE as a basis for interrogating suspected al-Qaida prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and later in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, the involvement of the CIA, which was secretly granted broad authority by President Bush days after 9/11 to target terrorists worldwide, suggests that both the military and the spy agency were following a policy approved by senior Bush administration officials. ...

From the House Government Oversight Committee (.pdf):

The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an "entity within the executive branch."

As described in a letter from Chairman Waxman to the Vice President, the National Archives protested the Vice President's position in letters written in June 2006 and August 2006. When these letters were ignored, the National Archives wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in January 2007 to seek a resolution of the impasse. The Vice President's staff responded by seeking to abolish the agency within the Archives that is responsible for implementing the President's executive order.

In his letter to the Vice President, Chairman Waxman writes: "I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions. ... [I]t would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials."

The Office of Vice President Dick Cheney proposed to abolish the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), the executive branch organization that oversees the national security classification system, after its Director insisted that the Vice President comply with reporting requirements that apply to all executive branch entities.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee (oversight.house.gov) who revealed the move today, said in a letter to the Vice President that it "could be construed as retaliation" against ISOO.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2007_cr/waxman062107.pdf

The proposed change in ISOO's status was ultimately rejected by an interagency review group which is considering revisions to the executive order on classification policy.

The dispute between ISOO and the Office of the Vice President was prompted by a complaint filed with ISOO by the Federation of American Scientists in May 2006 (Secrecy News, 05/31/06). The FAS complaint noted that the OVP had ceased to comply with its obligation to submit an annual report on classification and declassification activity, and asked the ISOO Director to enforce the requirement.

When the OVP continued to resist compliance, ISOO Director J. William Leonard formally asked the Attorney General in January 2007 to intervene and to render an interpretation of the executive that would resolve the dispute in one direction or another. ...

WP: "Schlozman's efforts to hire political conservatives for career jobs throughout the division are now being examined as part of a wide-ranging investigation of the Bush administration's alleged politicization of the Justice Department. The department's inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed last month that their inquiry, begun in March, will look at hiring, firing and legal-case decisions in the division." What's hard to understand reading this is why Schlozman and the DOJ haven't been sued by more of the people he discriminated against in the department because he didn't judge them to be on his political team. Such as the guy who voted for McCain. Friday afternoon resignation watch?

Wright: US Opts not to release detained Iranians.

Update: The USG excuse is not even trying to be believable. "They were originally due for review six months after their detention -- or by mid-July. Instead, the Multinational Force headquarters reviewed their status in April, meaning they are not eligible for another review until October, U.S. officials said. Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker were unaware that a review had occurred until last week, the officials noted."

WP's Robin Wright: "The Bush administration is laying the groundwork for an announcement of Tony Blair as special Middle East envoy for Palestinian governance and economic issues after he steps down as Britain's prime minister, following two months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, according to U.S. officials. Blair would report to the so-called Quartet overseeing Middle East peace efforts--the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia--and work on issues limited to the internal workings of a future Palestinian state. Political negotiations involving Palestinians, Israelis and the Arab states would be left to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the officials said. The idea, first proposed by Rice, was embraced by the Israeli government during talks between President Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert this week. The Palestinians have yet to be approached, but U.S. officials believe they would welcome a Blair appointment."

Check out this excerpt of Doug Farah's new book on blood-for-diamonds arms dealer Victor Bout.

Maybe the Senators' questions Spencer Ackerman highlights here would better have been asked not about "Special Operations forces" per se, but of any entity at all that could conceivably be under the command of or include special operations elements, including these special access program military task forces Hersh writes about. "Special operations forces" as "special ops forces" may not be exempt from the rules governing the rest of military forces in theater, but are there exceptions or exemptions, as Hersh has reported, for these secret task forces under the control of the Joint Special Operations command, designated as special access programs and reportedly authorized by the president to kill high-value targets? Hersh: "Shortly after September 11th, Rumsfeld, with the support of President Bush, had set up military task forces whose main target was the senior leadership of Al Qaeda. Their essential tactic was seizing and interrogating terrorists and suspected terrorists; they also had authority from the President to kill certain high-value targets on sight. The most secret task-force operations were categorized as Special Access Programs, or S.A.P.s." Admittedly hazy, but there does seem to be a deliberate no there-there quality to it all, in order to evade oversight, that allows commanders to technically truthfully say that Special Operations forces follow the same interrogation procedures as the other services, but which may not speak to the whole universe of conceivable exceptions.

Update: Reader CM writes, "I recall that I once know a member of USMC Force Reconnaise who remarked that his unit were special forces who were not 'Special Forces,' a fact which could be advantageous at times. Recon is still not under SpecOps command, though there has been talk of late to bring it in."

The Financial Times reports on the "political prince" Bandar:

As allegations that Saudi Arabia's Bandar binSultan was paid $1bn (£506m) from Britain's biggest weapons contract reverberated around the world, the wily, flamboyant man was nowhere to be found. He dropped out of sight weeks before, sparking rumours he had taken refuge in his palatial home in Aspen, Colorado.

His reason for the low profile, according to diplomats, was that he was already in trouble with his boss, King Abdullah, having delivered diplomatic messages to the US that were not exactly in line with the monarch's wishes. It was only this week that the prince was finally spotted in Morocco. Around the same time, the Saudi media published its first words on the scandal alleged in the British press, and only to print the prince's passionate denial of any personal gain. ...

The problem for Prince Ban-dar, however, is that the allegations came at a time when a new king, who took the throne only two years ago, has been seeking to clamp down on corruption and curb royal family privileges. The claims would not have been particularly welcome to the prince's father, Crown Prince Sultan, the long-serving defence minister recently confirmed as next in line to the Saudi throne. "All these allegations are not new in Saudi Arabia. The only thing that surprised people was that the figure was so big," says one Saudi analyst. "What really matters here is whether the king still deems that he trusts Bandar."

British blogger Dan Hardie detects a potentially significant fact down in a recent NYT report: American troops appear to be fighting "ferocious battles" in towns deep in the British-controlled part of southern Iraq, near the Iranian border.

Mark Goldberg weighs in on World Refugees Day. "For the first time since 2002, the number of refugees and displaced persons around the world is actually increasing." The principal reason: Iraq.

Human rights groups vigil for Iranian-held Woodrow Wilson Center scholar Haleh Esfandiari today in NY: "In response to the unfounded and unjust incarceration of Haleh Esfandiari, who has worked tirelessly to promote Iranian-American dialogue and scholarship, Amnesty International, the American-Islamic Congress, Human Rights Watch, Vital Voices Global Partnership, the Near Eastern Studies Department of Princeton University, and several other organizations will hold a vigil in New York on Wednesday, June 27. The purpose of the vigil is two-fold: to urge that all charges against Haleh Esfandiari and the other 3 Iranian Americans be dropped, and that the Iranian government immediately release Dr. Esfandiai and the other three Iranian-American detainees. It will take place across from the United Nations headquarters in New York City at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, from 12 – 1 p.m."

I'll be on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross today talking about U.S. policy to Iran. Update: Here's a link.

"What scandal?" French political commentator Christine Okrent to NPR on Segolene Royal-Francois Hollande split over his "permissiveness."

WP: Administration struggles with interrogation specifics.

WP: Bloomberg changes party affiliation from Republican to independent.

Ha'aretz: Netanyahu departs for U.S. in bid to increase pressure on Iran. ... "Netanyahu will then arrive in Washington where he will meet for talks on the Iranian issue with Vice President Dick Cheney, Democratic Party presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, and Republican Party presidential hopeful Fred Thompson."

Sad to read that Ha'aretz's excellent military correspondent Ze'ev Schiff has died, at age 75.

Paul Kiel: Lam forced to resign or face presidential order firing her.

The local NPR show Diane Rehme is having a call in show with WP reporters Dana Priest and Anne Hull about deficiencies of the mental health system for Iraq and Afghan war vets, and the calls coming in are extremely sobering. A lot of people really hanging on the edge. Here's the link.

IHT: Abu Omar rendition trial suspended until October 24. Ordered to await ruling of Constitutional Court on whether case violates state secrecy.

McClatchy has launched a new website.

4 Million Iraqi Refugees. Refugees International is promoting a National Call-In Day for Iraqi Refugees on June 19th. "We're hoping that Americans can call attention to the 4 million Iraqis who have been forced out of their homes." Details here.

RNC email accounts at the White House. Congressman Waxman reports:

* The number of White House officials given RNC e-mail accounts is higher than previously disclosed. In March 2007, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said that only a "handful of officials" had RNC e-mail accounts. In later statements, her estimate rose to "50 over the course of the administration." In fact, the Committee has learned from the RNC that at least 88 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts. ...

· White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts. The RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these e-mails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official ".gov" e-mail accounts. Other heavy users of RNC e mail accounts include former White House Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 e-mails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings(35,198 e-mails). These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.

· There has been extensive destruction of the e-mails of White House officials by the RNC. Of the 88 White House officials who received RNC e-mail accounts, the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials. ...

· There is evidence that the Office of White House Counsel under Alberto Gonzales may have known that White House officials were using RNC e- mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records. ...

The Presidential Records Act requires the President to "take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented ... and maintained as Presidential records." To implement this legal requirement, the White House Counsel issued clear written policies in February 2001 instructing White House staff to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account. . . .

LAT: "U.S. tightens controls on exports to China. Over the objections of major companies, the Commerce Department adds to a list of products requiring licensing for security reasons."

Arianna Huffington: the battle of September has begun.

Don't miss Andrew Bacevich in today's Boston Globe: "Responsibility for the disaster of Iraq lies not only with the President of the United States, but also with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president needs expert and candid military counsel. Not yes-men in uniform":

... Long before Pace arrived on the scene the JCS had established a well-deserved reputation as one of the most ineffective institutions in Washington. ...

The creation of a permanent JCS two years after the war was intended to replicate that success: drawing on the accumulated wisdom of their profession, the new Joint Chiefs would help the president and Congress maintain adequate but economical defenses, avoid unnecessary wars, and wage effectively those wars that proved unavoidable.

Measured by these criteria, over the course of six decades the Joint Chiefs of Staff have performed miserably. Attempts to fix the institution only introduced new varieties of dysfunction, culminating in the rise of General Colin Powell, the most talented -- and most problematic -- officer ever to preside over the JCS. After Powell, things would only get worse.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff inhabit the seam at which war, statecraft, and domestic politics intersect -- an environment saturated with political considerations. Charged with providing professional advice to civilian policymakers, they also represent the institutional interests of the armed services. In pursuit of those interests, the natural tendency of the chiefs is to encroach on territory ostensibly reserved for civilians. Likewise, the tendency of strong-willed civilians -- for example, defense secretaries in the mold of Robert McNamara or Donald Rumsfeld -- is to encroach on the territory claimed by the generals.

As a consequence, instead of military professionals offering disinterested advice to help policymakers render sound decisions, the history of this civilian-military relationship is one of conniving, double-dealing, and mutual manipulation. As generals increasingly played politics, they forfeited their identity as nonpartisan servants of the state. ...

In his now-classic 1997 book, "Dereliction of Duty," Colonel H. R. McMaster, an active-duty army officer who has served in Iraq with considerable distinction, described how a civil-military relationship based on mutual dishonesty and suspicion reached its pre-Iraq low-point during the US intervention in Vietnam. In his blistering indictment, McMaster charged the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the early 1960s -- the "five silent men," he called them -- with complicity in the lies and deceptions that produced the debacle of that war. ...

DP-2 Follies. What do you bet that duPont found other, as yet undiscovered, off the book ways to reward Hunter -- and perhaps Cox and Cunningham too -- for their loyal support and earmarks for the worthless plane that couldn't fly, that the Pentagon didn't want?

Go read Seymour Hersh's latest, "The General's Report: How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, became one of its casualties." Lots of damning revelations here that cry out for Rumsfeld to finally be held accountable.

Update: Reader JR, a retired Air Force officer, comments that this is a striking quote from the piece: "...Taguba got a different message, however, from other officers, among them General John Abizaid, then the head of Central Command. A few weeks after his report became public, Taguba, who was still in Kuwait, was in the back seat of a Mercedes sedan with Abizaid. Abizaid’s driver and his interpreter, who also served as a bodyguard, were in front. Abizaid turned to Taguba and issued a quiet warning: 'You and your report will be investigated.' 'I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me,' Taguba said. 'I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia.'”

So, who at the Pentagon decided to force Taguba to resign early?

Haaretz: an overpowering reality.

... The American embarrassment provides a convenient backdrop for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to the White House on Tuesday. ...

What will they discuss? The Hamas victory bolsters Israel's unstated policy of dividing the Palestinian Authority into two states - Gaza and the West Bank. Israel cannot say this out loud in front of the Americans, who are committed to a single Palestinian state, so Olmert will have to speak in code. He will suggest that Bush strengthen international support for the peace process. This would involve deploying an international force in Gaza, implementing an engineering solution to block arms smuggling in Rafah, pressuring the Egyptians to do more against the smugglers, and encouraging the Saudis to stop being embarrassed by the collapse of the Palestinian unity agreement cooked up in Mecca. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will present this policy on Monday to 27 European foreign ministers, who invited her to speak at a conference in Luxembourg.

The Americans, meanwhile, are not rushing to switch gears. They still believe that strengthening Abbas is the only solution left, and that's what they'll tell Olmert. ...

All the same, officials in the Prime Minister's Bureau expect the new reality in Gaza to force the American administration to pay more attention to Israeli ideas. If the internationalization of Gaza does turn out to be practical, it will raise the question of what to do with the West Bank. A senior political official in Jerusalem said this week that Israel must not despair of having Abbas as a partner, because he can be useful despite his failure in Gaza, and that Israel should not rush to hold talks with Hamas or adopt proposals for placing the territories under international trusteeship. The world is eager to see political progress, and as a first step, it is pressuring Israel to release the PA's frozen tax funds. The collapse of the Palestinian unity government provides an opportunity to transfer the funds to Abbas.

Rice and Livni support talk of a "political horizon," a kind of theoretical discussion with the Palestinian "moderates" over the character of their future state. Nothing will be implemented until the Palestinians meet several tests; in the meantime, the international pressure on Israel will ease up. Europe will be asked to provide financial aid, and the Arab League will be asked to take steps toward normalized relations with Israel in exchange for Israeli gestures toward the Palestinians. Something like "Israeli representation in Bahrain in exchange for the release of 500 prisoners" or "a photograph of Olmert and Livni with Persian Gulf princes in exchange for the removal of 40 roadblocks." ...

This will be fun:

Harper's Washington editor Ken Silverstein has spent years watching Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firms advocate in Congress on behalf of corrupt, dictatorial foreign regimes. He wondered: Exactly what sorts of promises do these firms make to foreign governments? ...

For answers, Silverstein went undercover as “Kenneth Case,” a consultant for “The Maldon Group,” a mysterious (and fictitious) London-based firm that claimed to have a financial stake in improving the public image of neo-Stalinist Turkmenistan.

In the brief excerpt below, “Kenneth Case” and his coworker “Ricardo” visit the grandest of the Washington lobby shops. ...

The NYT's James Risen: "A Republican senator blocked a vote in the Judiciary Committee on whether to authorize subpoenas to the Justice Department to obtain secret legal opinions and other documents related to the National Security Agency’s program of domestic eavesdropping. The action by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona will block the vote for a week. After the vote next Thursday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the committee, can decide whether to issue the subpoenas or use them as leverage in negotiations with the Bush administration over access to the documents."

Just Out: two short items at Tapped. A post on a new national security think tank in town, CNAS, and its Iraq plan; and a short reported item on the emergence of a new Iran timeline:

Back in February, U.S. point man on Iran Nick Burns told the Brookings Institution (.pdf): 'We have got some time" for diplomatic and economic pressure on Iran to show results. Now State department officials are signaling, the window for multilateral diplomacy is "unwinding." The immediate cause of the change in tone? The U.S. is badgering allies on the UN Security Counil to impose a third round of sanctions on Iran for failing to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency on its nuclear program. "Look, the third round of sanctions is critical," a State Department official said. "If we're up there begging and bargaining and negotiating over the graduation of what are largely ineffective sanctions, then fine, time is not long..."

But on a June 6th visit to Washington for the US-Israel Strategic Dialogue, the Israeli team leader, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said he and Secretary of State Rice agreed to review sanctions' effectiveness at the end of the year. "Sanctions must be strong enough to bring about change in the Iranians by the end of 2007," Mofaz was cited by JTA. ...

More from the NYT, WP, and ThinkProgress.

WP: Hamas to grant amnesty to Fatah leaders.

MSNBC: SecDef Gates on surprise visit to Iraq.

Tara McKelvey has excerpted part of her new book Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror World, at The American Prospect today. Go take a look.

San Diego Union-Trib: Cunningham financier Tommy Kontogiannis guilty plea unsealed.

Mideast Web's Ami Isseroff: "The era of Islamic rule has apparently arrived."

The Middle East policy of the United States is suffering an unmitigated catastrophe as I write these words. The U.S. is suffering a policy disaster that may be worse in the long run than the Iraq debacle, but apparently nobody in the state department understands this. The Palestinian national cause is likewise suffering a second Nakba, a disaster as bad or worse than that of 1948. We Israelis too, have a new threat on our southern border. The astounding thing is that nobody at all seems to care very much, and everyone goes about business as usual, as if nothing happened.

In Gaza, a relatively small force of Hamas Islamist extremists are liquidating the possibility of a two state solution and a secular Palestinian democracy. The tragedy is exemplified by two items.

These are the last broadcast words of a Fatah activist, in the process of being murdered by the Hamas:

Hamas has stormed the home of Jamal Abu Jideyan, general secretary of Fatah in Northern Gaza and an Al Aqsa Brigades commander, and assassinated him. About 20 minutes ago we were listening to Sawt Al Hurriya, a Palestinian radio station, as Jideyan�s brother called into the station frantic. Hamas militants had surrounded the family�s home in the Jabbaliya refugee camp and had fired 16 RPG rounds at the home, with 35 family members inside, he said. �They�re firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We�re not Jews,� he screamed into the telephone live on air, gun fire bursting in the background.

"We are not Jews," said the Fatah fighter, therefore, we should not die. Palestinians, including the Fatah themselves, were so transfixed by the notion of "resistance," that they failed to understand that the Hamas guns were aimed at them, and at liquidation of the Palestinian national project. The Palestinians never internalized the idea of sovereignty and what it means, and the need to abandon genocidal projects and racism in favor of national construction.

A Hamas spokesperson put it succinctly:

"We are telling our people that the past era has ended and will not return," Islam Shahawan, a spokesman for Hamas' militia, told Hamas radio. "The era of justice and Islamic rule has arrived."

Indeed, the era of Islamic rule has apparently arrived, and that was goal of the Hamas. ...

In this Post piece, former Palestinian advisor Ed Abington also declares the death of the two state solution.

Ha'aretz's Danny Rubinstein analyzes whether Israel should reoccupy Gaza.

Friday Lunch Club: Lebanon's Central Bank gearing up for a two-government state.

WP: DOJ investigates if Gonzales tried to influence aide's testimony.

WP:

An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.

The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews. The earlier report found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling.

The vast majority of the new violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect. The agents retained the information anyway in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities.

But two dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved agents' requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have, according to the audit results provided to The Washington Post. Only two such examples were identified earlier in the smaller sample.

FBI officials said the results confirmed what agency supervisors and outside critics feared, namely that many agents did not understand or follow the required legal procedures and paperwork requirements when collecting personal information with one of the most sensitive and powerful intelligence-gathering tools of the post-Sept. 11 era -- the National Security Letter, or NSL.

WSJ News Alert: "Bush's approval falls to 29%, lowest of his presidency." And you thought you were having a bad day.

Scott Lilly: When Chutzpah was an understatement.

AP: Explosion kills another anti-Syrian lawmaker in Beirut. "The explosion, apparently from a bomb-rigged car, killed Walid Eido, his son and two bodyguards, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Six others were also killed and at least 11 were wounded, the officials said. Eido, 65, was an ally of Saad Hariri, the leader of the parliamentary majority and son of Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated on Feb. 14, 2005, in a suicide truck bombing in Beirut. Eido is the seventh opponent of Damascus to be killed in two years in this conflict-ridden country."

Stephen Kinzer: Needed: an Isfahan communique.

ThinkProgress: Leahy authorizes subpoenas for warrantless domestic spying docs. More.

NYT:

Ever since the Americans purged former members of the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein from Iraq’s government soon after the 2003 invasion, they have been trying to reform their policy.

Some changes were made in 2004, bringing back teachers and others with technical expertise, but the hope has been that a broader plan to rehire low- to midlevel Baathists would woo disaffected Sunni Arabs and drain the Sunni-led insurgency of support.

The latest effort began this spring with the grandly titled Reconciliation and Accountability Law, a proposal backed by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the senior American envoy in Iraq until April. The draft decreed that all former Baathists who had worked in the government could collect their pensions. It opened government jobs to thousands more, and set a three-month time limit for Iraqi citizens to bring lawsuits against former members of the Baath Party.

Sunnis supported the overhaul, and Shiites and Kurds were expected to fall in line after the Shiite prime minister and the Kurdish president announced the plan on March 26.

But the law was stymied by Ahmad Chalabi, who headed Iraq’s de-Baathification commission. Mr. Chalabi, the former Pentagon protégé, relies on the commission for an official role in Iraq’s government. Having just renovated a spacious office in the Green Zone, he has strongly opposed any effort to weaken his position or the country’s policy on former Baathists.

According to a senior official with the commission, Mr. Chalabi and members of his organization sabotaged the American-backed plan by rallying opposition among Shiite government officials in southern Iraq, then taking their complaints to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric.

On April 1, Mr. Chalabi visited the ayatollah’s office in Najaf. He later appeared at a news conference, declaring that Ayatollah Sistani told him the law was incomplete and that “there would be other drafts.”

A day later, an aide to the reclusive cleric confirmed that there was “a general feeling of rejection” about the proposal.

Since then, the original draft has gone nowhere. ...

Oh my, indeed. More. Fred Fielding is going to be able to put those nine new attorneys to work right away.

The Swoop: Sunnis abandon the US Iran ship?

Very interesting interview with Rice on Iran.

Spencer Ackerman: Musharraf on the way out?

Cernig parses two varying AP write ups of the abrupt cancellation today of a planned meeting between an Iran rep and the IAEA.

Marty Lederman analyzes today's federal appeals court ruling rejecting the indefinite military detention of a US person without charging him.

Danny Postel: Richard Rorty, the final interview.

Check out ABC World News for a feature tonight on the DP-2, an Office of Naval Research/NASA aviation program that, according to journalist Jason Vest, owes its birth and ongoing existence to two decades' worth of earmarks from current Reps Duncan Hunter, Dana Rohrabacher and former Rep (now SEC Commissioner) Chris Cox. Tomorrow the House Science and Technology Committee's Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight will be holding an oversight hearing on the DP-2 (.pdf).

Update: Here's a link to the report.

Of course, we don't have the details on this case yet, but one worries that this could all get out of hand. Along with security, are airport officials now going to be ad hoc diagnosing sniffles, and detaining passengers who cough too much? Oy.

WP: Privatization roll-back at the CIA: " ... Acting under pressure from Congress, the CIA has decided to trim its contractor staffing by 10 percent. It is the agency's first effort since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to curb what critics have decried as the growing privatization of U.S. intelligence work, a circumstance that has sharply boosted some personnel costs. Contractors currently make up about one-third of the CIA workforce, but CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said that their work has not been efficiently managed. ..." RJ Hillhouse has been breaking many stories at her blog about the privatization of intelligence, and recently calculated the intelligence budget based on some information on the percent of intelligence work done by contractors and the budget devoted to it. Update: More from Tim Shorrock.

An intriguing lobbying angle on the BAE bribery story. The Guardian:

The arms company BAE Systems used a secret payments system to transfer more than £13m to a company linked to David Hart, the controversial former Conservative defence adviser, according to legal sources.

He has acted as a lobbyist both for Britain's biggest arms company and also for the giant military manufacturer Boeing in the US.

Mr Hart, an Old Etonian who lives in a Suffolk mansion, became notorious in the 1980s for helping the then prime minster Margaret Thatcher break the miners' strike in an operation he ran from a luxury suite at Claridges hotel, in London.

BAE is alleged to have paid the money into a previously unknown offshore company linked to Mr Hart called Defence Consultancy Ltd (DCL).
The company was registered anonymously in 1997 in the British Virgin Islands, with a bank account in the Channel Islands tax haven of Guernsey, at the Henry Ansbacher merchant bank. Mr Hart's late father, Louis "Boy" Hart, was the bank's chairman.

This is the latest allegation to emerge from corruption investigations into BAE, being conducted by prosecutors from three countries - Switzerland, Sweden, and the Serious Fraud Office in the UK.

The family of Mr Hart, who is seriously ill at present, say that none of the payments were linked to BAE's al-Yamamah arms deals with Saudi Arabia - worth £40bn. These deals have been at the centre of corruption inquiries. Mr Hart's family said he did not personally "own or control" DCL.

Legal sources said Mr Hart was not regarded as a corruption suspect. They said it was unclear for what purpose such huge payments had been made.

BAE is alleged to have made the cash transfers via its secret Red Diamond operation, which is currently under investigation by the SFO.

The SFO said of Red Diamond in a leaked document: "The whole system is maintained in such conditions of secrecy that there is a legitimate suspicion concerning the real purpose of the payments."

Red Diamond was a concealed BAE subsidiary, registered anonymously in the British Virgin Islands, the existence of which was never disclosed to shareholders in the company's published accounts.

With the help of LloydsTSB bank, BAE is said to have used Red Diamond to channel hundreds of millions of pounds to confidential agents with offshore accounts all over the world. ...

Defence sources say Mr Hart was hired by BAE to promote its interests in the US, where the company has been embarking on a series of joint deals and acquisitions.

The Guardian asked BAE why it had paid Mr Hart so much money through such an unusual route. The firm refused to answer. ...

WP: "The Bush administration increasingly emphasized partisan political ties over expertise in recent years in selecting the judges who decide the fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, despite laws that preclude such considerations, according to an analysis by The Washington Post."

LAT: "Sudan has secretly worked with the CIA to spy on the insurgency in Iraq, an example of how the U.S. has continued to cooperate with the Sudanese regime even while condemning its suspected role in the killing of tens of thousands of civilians in Darfur."

Ted Gup reports on official America's growing obsession with secrecy for its own sake.

Newsweek: Bandar and that $2 billion.

Heads up: The Unites States v. I. Lewis Libby authors Jeff Lomonaco and Murray Waas will be answering reader questions at a book salon at FireDogLake later today.

Observer: MI6 probes UK link to nuclear trade with Iran: " ... During the 20-month investigation, which also involved MI5 and Customs and Excise, a group of Britons was tracked as they obtained weapons-grade uranium from the black market in Russia. Investigators believe it was intended for export to Sudan and on to Iran."

WP: Planning for a 50k "post-occupation" long term US force for Iraq.

NYT: Five Chinese Uighurs Leave Gitmo for Albanian Limbo.

The WP's Carol Leonnig: Five Myths about the Libby case.

Reader JG: "I was catching up on Carpetbagger just now and came across this sentence: 'I suppose it’s possible that there are better speakers than Bill Clinton, but I don’t think so.' Well, I hit that link and found — woe! — a 2-hour, 19-minute, 50-second tape of Harvard’s Class Day 2007. But after some trial-and-error, I can report that YOU WILL BE WELL REWARDED to move the little jobbie to 1:36:40. You’ll be spellbound until 2:05:25, I can just about guarantee, and whatever else your agenda includes, you’ll have had a memorable Saturday. Flaws and all, a wizard." Check it out.

Weldon update: Philadelphia Daily News:

Some observers of Delaware County politics might chuckle when they hear that former U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon's defense firm is entering the "anti-corruption" business, but Weldon's boss isn't among them. ...

Defense Solutions, an Exton-based project-management firm, announced yesterday that it had landed a contract with the Bashundhara Group to assist the corporate conglomerate in "ridding itself of even the hint of corruption and illegal business practices."

In March, Weldon led a small delegation to Bangladesh, where he urged the United States to establish strong trade partnerships with the Muslim democracy. The trip was also a chance to drum up business for Defense Solutions. ...

Defense Solutions was hired by Bashundhara Group Chairman Ahmed Akbar Sobhan to root out corruption in the group's 14 divisions. Sobhan is trying to prevent the military-backed government from taking over his company and putting about 100,000 people out of work, Ringgold said.

Meanwhile, Weldon's fate remains unknown, nearly eight months after FBI agents raided the homes and business office of his daughter and close political ally. The probe is reportedly focused on whether Weldon helped the pair obtain foreign lobbying contracts.

An FBI spokeswoman said yesterday that the investigation is ongoing, but declined to elaborate. ...

The Washington Institute's Soner Cagaptay analyzes reports of Turkish troops in northern Iraq.

PhD candidates at Stony Brook have a survey about immigration attitudes, part of their disseration project, they've asked to be posted, if any readers want to take it.

This Paris Hilton in and out and in of jail stuff is unbelievable. Is this just California or is our whole national judicial system really insane?

Update: Insane it is. Bob Herbert:

Two months ago I wrote about a 6-year-old girl in Florida who was handcuffed by the police and taken off to the county jail after she threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class.

Police in Brooklyn recently arrested more than 30 young people, ages 13 to 22, as they walked toward a subway station, on their way to a wake for a teenage friend who had been murdered. No evidence has been presented that the grieving young people had misbehaved. No drugs or weapons were found. But they were accused by the police of gathering unlawfully and of disorderly conduct.

In March, police in Baltimore handcuffed a 7-year-old boy and took him into custody for riding a dirt bike on the sidewalk. The boy tearfully told The Baltimore Examiner, “They scared me.” Mayor Sheila Dixon later apologized for the arrest.

Children, including some who are emotionally disturbed, are often arrested for acting out. Some are arrested for carrying sharp instruments that they had planned to use in art classes, and for mouthing off.

This is a problem that has gotten out of control. Behavior that was once considered a normal part of growing up is now resulting in arrest and incarceration. ...

The Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union has been studying this issue. “What we see routinely,” said Dennis Parker, the program’s director, “is that behavior that in my time would have resulted in a trip to the principal’s office is now resulting in a trip to the police station.”

He added that the evidence seems to show that white kids are significantly less likely to be arrested for minor infractions than black or Latino kids. The 6-year-old arrested in Florida was black. The 7-year-old arrested in Baltimore was black.

Shaquanda Cotton was black. She was the 14-year-old high school freshman in Paris, Tex., who was arrested for shoving a hall monitor. She was convicted in March 2006 of “assault on a public servant” and sentenced to a prison term of — hold your breath — up to seven years!

Shaquanda’s outraged family noted that the judge who sentenced her had, just three months earlier, sentenced a 14-year-old white girl who was convicted of arson for burning down her family’s home. The white girl was given probation.

Just Out: a piece in National Journal, "Keeping Iran Off Balance":

Late last month, ABC News reported that the administration had notified congressional intelligence committees of a covert action authorized by President Bush against Iran. "The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert 'black' operation to destabilize the Iranian government," ABC reported. "The sources ... say President Bush has signed a 'nonlethal presidential finding' that puts into motion a CIA plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation, and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions."

The report sent ripples through Persian Gulf policy circles, suggesting that in the long running battle between hawks in the administration who favor "regime change" in Tehran and doves who favor "behavior change," the regime-changers were gaining the upper hand. And it came just as the United States was about to sit down to talks in Iraq with Iranian representatives -- one of the few times that diplomats from the two countries have met since relations were sundered after the Iranian hostage crisis 27 years ago.

There's just one problem. Interviews with numerous current and former Iran hands in the U.S. government indicate that the Bush administration has not decided to try to foment regime change in Iran. On the contrary, the policy is moving in the other direction, away from confrontation and toward expanded diplomacy, multiple sources and signs suggest. The reported covert action, these sources say, should be understood as part of an effort by Washington, now hobbled by the war in Iraq, to gain leverage vis-a-vis Iran as it moves deeper along a diplomatic track.

Among the continuing signs that it is actually State Department pragmatists who are gaining the upper hand over regime-change hard-liners, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns informed a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in writing in May of the closing down of a shadowy U.S. interagency group, the Iran-Syria Policy Operations Group, that had been meeting weekly over the past year to find ways to poke at the Iranian regime. Sources at the State Department and on Capitol Hill say that Burns had wanted the group closed for months, believing it was leading to confusion -- and turf battles -- over the thrust of U.S. policy toward Iran. "The policy of the U.S. government is behavior change," sighed one U.S. official involved with Iran policy, who asked not to be further identified. "We're on the record [saying that], a million times." ...

Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA and National Security Council official who dealt with Iran, said that the behavior-changers in the Bush administration clearly are winning. "I think that there certainly is a group within the administration which would love to pursue regime change, and they are centered in the vice president's office," Riedel said. "But I think overall they appear to have lost the battle on this. And the biggest reason they lost the battle is that the military option, which is essential to regime change, has just got so many downsides that it's become obvious even to hard-liners opposed to the clerical regime that there is no military option available to us as long as we have 150,000 soldiers in Iraq."

Riedel, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, added, "The most important line in the ABC report, which people have not focused on, is that this is a nonlethal finding.... You can't provide arms in a nonlethal finding -- arms are by definition lethal."

He continued, "The one part of the covert action that is probably worth looking at the most is the business of going at Iranian financial transfers," especially those involving the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Revolutionary Guard is believed to be behind Iranian operations to destabilize Iraq and Lebanon. United Nations sanctions, imposed against Iran for its nuclear program, call for cutting off financial transactions to the corps or its members.

The Treasury Department has been doing a lot of work in the past five or six years to make these financial sanctions more successful, Riedel said, and that requires good intelligence. The problem has been getting the intelligence agencies to surrender information to their financial counterparts. Late last year, The Washington Post reported that State Department officials had been forced to resort to Google searches to identify Iranian officials in the nuclear program who could face financial sanctions and travel bans. Riedel said that the covert authorization may give financial authorities greater access to intelligence. ...

NBC: Gates to name replacement for JCS chairman Pace. "Gates told reporters he had recommended that Adm. Mike Mullen, currently chief of naval operations, replace Pace." Another Navy person ... NYT: "If confirmed, the admiral will be the first Navy man to be chairman since Adm. William J. Crowe, who served from 1985 to 1989."

Reuters: "Spain has arrested flamboyant Syrian-born arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar on U.S. charges of terrorism, Spain's National Police said on Friday. Al-Kassar has been charged by a Federal Court for the Southern District of New York with conspiring to kill Americans, supply terrorists, obtain anti-aircraft missiles and launder money, the police said. A long-time Spanish resident known as the 'Prince of Marbella' for his opulent lifestyle, al-Kassar was arrested at Madrid airport and will appear before a judge in the capital later on Friday." My pal Aram Roston interviewed Kassar at his fortress in Marbella for this Observer profile.

LAT: "'War czar' duties may signal policy shift: Many are surprised when Lute testifies he'd report directly to Bush on Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving the national security advisor out of the loop. ... 'Appointing a general outside the chain of command to run an ongoing war? I don't think that's ever been done in precisely this way,' [David] Rothkopf said. 'Talk about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.'"

Is the Lute appointment about the administration shrugging off the legacy of Iraq to the uniformed military? A correspondent writes, "There was this hilarious skit on the Daily Show about exactly this when the czar position was announced. They showed a vin diagram with three overlapping circles, one labeled the White House, the other DoD, and the third the Joint Chiefs -- the 'czar' was supposed to operate at the intersection of the three areas of responsibility. John Stewart asked what that intersection was called, and his 'correspondent' dead-panned: 'The Blame' (which popped up on the screen in bold letters at the intersection of the 3 circles). Brilliant."

NYT:

Mr. Schlozman fits neatly into the larger picture. Prosecutors who refused to use their offices to help Republicans win elections, like John McKay in Washington State, and David Iglesias in New Mexico, were fired. Prosecutors who used their offices to help Republicans did well.

Congress has now heard from everyone in the Justice Department who appears to have played a significant role in the firings of the prosecutors. They have all insisted that the actual decisions about whom to fire came from somewhere else. It is increasingly clear that the somewhere else was the White House. If Congress is going to get to the bottom of the scandal, it has to get the testimony of Mr. Rove, his aides Scott Jennings and Sara Taylor, Ms. Miers and her deputy, William Kelley.

The White House has offered to make them available only if they do not take an oath and there is no transcript. Those conditions are a formula for condoning perjury, and they are unacceptable. As for documents, the White House has released piles of useless e-mail messages. But it has reported that key e-mails to and from Mr. Rove were inexplicably destroyed. At the same time, it has argued that e-mails of Mr. Rove’s that were kept on a Republican Party computer system, which may contain critical information, should not be released.

This noncooperation has gone on long enough. Mr. Leahy should deliver the subpoenas for the five White House officials and make clear that if the administration resists, Congress will use all available means to get the information it needs.

The trial of Italian and American officials charged in the 2003 extraordinary rendition of Egyptian cleric Abu Omar gets underway in Italy today. If you can get through the Prospect registration (it's free, but requires a bit of persistence), check out my interview with the lead prosecutor in the case, Armando Spataro.

Update: Trial to resume June 18th.

What's stunning about these reports that Bandar was funnelled $2 billion in bribes from an $80 billion UK-Saudi arms deal is that no one - not Tony Blair, who shut down the UK Serious Fraud Office investigation, not Bandar, not BAE -- is really denying it. Such is the cost of doing business with Saudi Arabia. And maybe Tony Blair is not wrong. He didn't do one of those George Bush "we don't do torture, but we reserve the right to use all means necessary" basically phonyisms. Blair just openly said, we're shutting this investigation down because official exposure of the truth will hurt British national security interests. No effort to deny that the truth is really ugly, and shows the British government at the highest levels going back to Thatcher authorizing open bribery. That BAE's lawyers will spin it so that it can still buy US defense firms and not get targeted by the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is another certainty, and one the US government seems certain to permit.

A follow on report from the Guardian: "British investigators were ordered by the attorney-general Lord Goldsmith to conceal from international anti-bribery watchdogs the existence of payments totalling more than £1bn to a Saudi prince, the Guardian can disclose. ... The Guardian has established that the attorney-general warned colleagues last year that 'government complicity' in the payment of the sums was in danger of being revealed if the SFO probe was allowed to continue. ...."

"Black site" prison countries identified. The Guardian's Stephen Gray: "Despite denials by their governments, senior security officials in Poland and Romania have confirmed to investigators for the Council of Europe that their countries were used to hold some of America's most important prisoners captured after 9/11 in secret." More from the WP, which got ahold of Dick Marty's report:

A European investigator said he has "factually established" that Poland and Romania allowed the CIA to operate secret prisons where alleged al-Qaeda operatives were detained and interrogated, according to documents scheduled to be presented Friday to Europe's official human rights organization.

Dick Marty, a Swiss lawyer for the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights agency, said detainees who were considered "especially sensitive" were incarcerated in Poland and those believed "to be less important were held in Romania," the documents said.
...

Marty wrote that he was "not ruling out the possibility that secret CIA detentions may also have occurred" in other European countries, adding that his investigation was hampered by the failure of the United States, NATO and many European countries to cooperate with the probe.

The Post, which first reported on the existence of the secret prisons in 2005, has not published the names of East European countries involved in the program at the request of senior U.S. officials, who argued the disclosure could hamper counterterrorism efforts.

"Some individuals were kept in secret detention centers for periods of several years where they were subjected to degrading treatment and so-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques' (essentially a euphemism for a kind of torture)," Marty wrote.

He said many of the actions are "unacceptable under the laws of European countries" and would be legally challenged if they were undertaken in the United States.

"The fact that the measures only apply to non-American citizens reflects a kind of 'legal apartheid,' " he wrote.

In his explanatory note, Marty concluded, "There is no real international strategy against terrorism. . . . The refusal to establish and recognize a functioning international judicial and prosecution system is also a major weakness in our efforts to combat international terrorism." ...

Update: Here's Marty's report (.pdf).

The NYT's Sabrina Tavernise reports from the Turkish military build up along the Turkish-Iraqi border town of Cizre:

Turkey is stepping up its presence along its border with Iraq to levels not seen in years in an effort to root out Kurdish separatist guerrillas who take refuge in northern Iraq. ...

Since the early 1990s, Turkey has entered northern Iraq three times, with tens of thousands of troops, and it is clearly debating a repeat. ...

Over the years, Turkey has staged brief, small-scale incursions into Iraq to chase Kurdish militants, and keeps a small contingent of Special Forces troops at an outpost there, but the army has not entered since the American invasion in 2003.

So a recent increase in training exercises and patrols here near Cizre, close to the borders of Syria and Iraq, came as something of a surprise. Tanks clanked across mown grass, occasionally firing. An American-made helicopter flew above. Farther west, near the Tigris River, a line of hot, exhausted Turkish soldiers trudged up a ribbon of road through yellow wheat fields, apparently returning from a patrol in the Turkish mountains.

“It is the most I’ve seen in the last 10 years,” said a lentil farmer leaning on his scythe in a field near a highway, where trucks carrying Turkish tanks were passing nearby.

On the Iraqi side of the border, Kurdish militia members near Karavela village said they had been watching tanks and soldiers on the Turkish side for about a month.

“In the name of God, they never came like this before,” said Khalid Sindi, a captain in the Kurdish militia force, the pesh merga. “If they say it’s normal training, why are they doing it so close to the border? Turkey is threatening us. It’s obvious to everyone.”

AP: Iran releases three Finns detained in the Gulf.

Bandar bribed? So says the BBC:

A Saudi prince received secret payments from the UK's biggest arms dealer, a BBC investigation has revealed.

BAE Systems made regular payments of hundreds of millions of pounds to Prince Bandar bin Sultan for more than a decade.

The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.

Prince Bandar would not comment and BAE systems said they acted lawfully at all times. The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential.

The Prince served for 20 years as Saudi ambassador to the US.

Up to £120m a year was sent by BAE from the UK into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington for more than a decade.

The BBC's Panorama programme has established that these accounts were actually a conduit to Prince Bandar, the architect of the 1980s Al Yamamah deal to sell warplanes to Saudi.

The purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the expenses of the Prince's private Airbus.

David Caruso, an investigator who worked for the American bank where the accounts were held, said Prince Bandar had been taking money for his own personal use out of accounts that seemed to belong to his government.

He said: "There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts as we would call them, and the accounts of the royal family."

Mr Caruso said he understood this had been going on for "years and years".

"Hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars were involved," he added.

According to Panorama's sources, the payments were written into the arms deal contract in secret annexes, described as "support services".

They were authorised on a quarterly basis by the MoD.

The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.

The SFO inquiry into the Al Yamamah deal was stopped in December 2006.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said at the time it had been dropped because of national security concerns.

WP: Radio Farda correspondent detained in Iran appeals for State Department help.

WP: Cheney urged warrantless wiretaps:

Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.

The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.

Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas.

Comey said that Cheney's office later blocked the promotion of a senior Justice Department lawyer, Patrick Philbin, because of his role in raising concerns about the surveillance.

Interesting post on the pedigree of Rove's playbook for turning the federal government into an arm of the RNC.

Human Rights Watch press release on behalf of six human rights groups:

In the most comprehensive accounting to date, six leading human rights organizations today published the names and details of 39 people who are believed to have been held in secret US custody and whose current whereabouts remain unknown. The briefing paper also names relatives of suspects who were themselves detained in secret prisons, including children as young as seven.

In a related action, three of the groups filed a lawsuit in US federal court under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking the disclosure of information concerning “disappeared” detainees.

The 21-page briefing paper, “Off the Record: US Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the ‘War on Terror,’” includes detailed information about four people named as “disappeared” prisoners for the first time. The full list of people includes nationals from countries including Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan and Spain. They are believed to have been arrested in countries including Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan, and transferred to secret US detention centers.

The list – drafted by Amnesty International, Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law, Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve – draws together information from government and media sources, as well as from interviews with former prisoners and other witnesses.

“Off the Record” highlights aspects of the CIA detention program that the US government has actively tried to conceal, such as the locations where prisoners may have been held, the mistreatment they endured, and the countries to which they may have been transferred.

It reveals how suspects’ relatives, including wives and children as young as seven years old, have been held in secret detention. In September 2002, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s two young sons, aged seven and nine, were arrested. According to eyewitnesses, the two were held in an adult detention center for at least four months while US agents questioned the children about their father’s whereabouts.

Similarly, when Tanzanian national Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was seized in Gujarat, Pakistan, in July 2004, his Uzbek wife was detained with him.

The human rights groups are calling on the US government to put a permanent end to the CIA’s secret detention and interrogation program, and to disclose the identities, fate, and whereabouts of all detainees currently or previously held at secret facilities operated or overseen by the US government as part of the “war on terror.”

AP: Cheney blocked promotion of Justice official who wouldn't rubberstamp warrantless domestic spying:

Vice President Dick Cheney blocked the promotion of a Justice Department official involved in a bedside standoff over President Bush's eavesdropping program, a Senate committee learned Wednesday.

In a written account, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey said Cheney warned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that he would oppose the promotion of a department official who once threatened to resign over the program.

Gonzales eventually decided against trying to promote Patrick Philbin to principal deputy solicitor general, Comey said.

"I understood that someone at the White House communicated to Attorney General Gonzales that the vice president would oppose the appointment if the attorney general pursued the matter," Comey wrote. "The attorney general chose not to pursue it."

Comey responded to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Harper's Ken Silverstein reports on a new lawsuit against a firm controlled by the first daughter of Uzbekistan.

Former National Intelligence Council officer on the Middle East Paul Pillar writes in the National Interest about the intelligence assessments on Iraq he ordered and supervised that foretold the instability and violence:

... [The] weapons estimate was one of only three classified, community-coordinated assessments about Iraq that the intelligence community produced in the months prior to the war. ...

With the administration’s determination to go to war having become painfully clear during 2002, I undertook these assessments to help policymakers, and those charged with executing their policies, make sense of what they would be getting into after Saddam was gone. Following a common practice of the National Intelligence Council with many self-initiated projects, we got a policy office—in this case the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff—to provide cover of sorts by agreeing to be listed as the customer of record. ...

In contrast, the other two assessments spoke directly to the instability, conflict, and black hole for blood and treasure that over the past four years we have come to know as Iraq. The assessments described the main contours of the mess that was to be, including Iraq’s unpromising and undemocratic political culture, the sharp conflicts and prospect for violence among Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups, the Marshall Plan-scale of effort needed for economic reconstruction, the major refugee problem, the hostility that would be directed at any occupying force that did not provide adequate security and public services, and the exploitation of the conflict by Al-Qaeda and other terrorists. ...

The story of these pre-war assessments has other implications that are at least important, however, including ones for current debate over Iraq policy. The assessments support the proposition that the expedition in Iraq always was a fool’s errand rather than a good idea spoiled by poor execution, implying that the continued search for a winning strategy is likely to be fruitless. ... But the analysts had no reason to assume poor execution, and their prognosis was dark nonetheless. Moreover, amid the stultifying policy environment that prevailed when the assessments were prepared—in which it was evident that the administration was going to war and that analysis supporting that decision was welcome and contrary analysis was not—it is all the more remarkable that the analysts would produce such a gloomy view.

A second observation—bearing in mind how long it took for these assessments to be made public—is that evaluation of the intelligence community’s performance tends to be heavily politicized, with much criticism having more to do with agendas and interests of the critics than with anything the intelligence community does. ...

Dana Milbank: Standing by their Man. More on the letters from Mike Abramowitz. A Plameologist friend writes that this HuffPost account is one of the better takes.

NBC: Turkey denies any incursion. AP: "Two senior [Turkish] security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the raid was limited in scope and that it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks. 'It is not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands,' one of the officials told the AP by telephone. [...] Meanwhile, U.S. officials in Washington told NBC News that Ankara has told the United States that there has been 'no Turkish incursion into Iraq.' There was no immediate explanation for the differing statements. [...] An official at military headquarters in Ankara declined to confirm or deny the report that Turkish troops had entered Iraq."

I reported on the problem for Washington of growing tensions between Iraqi Kurds and the Turks over the PKK issue in the May 5 issue of National Journal, "Iraq's Potential New Front," story excerpts below the fold. Summary: " ... The task of finding a diplomatic solution to the PKK problem comes at a time when the Bush administration is struggling with more-pressing security concerns in the rest of Iraq and is showing signs of exhaustion as it confronts an array of problems abroad and at home. The risk, regional experts say, is that a distracted Washington could miss signs that Turkish-Kurdish tensions are approaching a full-blown crisis." I also profiled the Kurdistan Regional Government's Washington representative Qubad Talabani in this month's Washington Monthly, and reported on Kurdistan's covert back channels in Mother Jones.

"Iraq's Potential New Front," National Journal, May 5, 2007 issue:

As if Washington doesn't have enough problems in Iraq, now it faces growing tensions between Turkey and the Kurds of northern Iraq.

In advance of Turkish presidential elections this month, the presence of more than 3,000 members and sympathizers of the Kurdistan Workers Party -- known as the PKK -- at a camp in the remote Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq has become a major source of public outrage in Turkey. The Turkish military leadership has threatened an incursion, and Turkish public opinion of the United States has turned sharply hostile.

Turkey and the U.S. consider the PKK a terrorist organization, and during the 1980s and 1990s the party fought a war with the Turkish military that left tens of thousands of people dead -- many of them victims of terrorist attacks. Although the PKK has been less active in recent years, Turkey claims that the group has killed 130 of its citizens in the past year. And Ankara complains that Washington is all talk and no action when it comes to getting the Kurdish leadership in northern Iraq to clamp down on the party.

The heightened tensions between two of Washington's most reliable partners in the region, the Turks and the Iraqi Kurds, occur amid the continued cooling of relations between Washington and Ankara. Some quarters of official Washington still resent Ankara's refusal to allow the United States to use Turkish territory to invade Iraq from the north in 2003, a decision driven by public opposition in Turkey to the war. The Turks also were afraid that the war would lead to a more independent Kurdish entity in Iraq's north that would spur similar demands by Turkey's own large Kurdish population.

The task of finding a diplomatic solution to the PKK problem comes at a time when the Bush administration is struggling with more-pressing security concerns in the rest of Iraq and is showing signs of exhaustion as it confronts an array of problems abroad and at home.

The risk, regional experts say, is that a distracted Washington could miss signs that Turkish-Kurdish tensions are approaching a full-blown crisis. Last month, Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, Turkey's military chief, asked Ankara for permission to send forces into northern Iraq, and there are reports of troops moving toward the border. The activity follows remarks by Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, advising Turkey to get used to the idea of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan. It also comes amid concerns that the PKK will step up terrorist attacks in Turkey this spring and summer.

Zeyno Baran, a senior fellow and specialist on Turkey at the Hudson Institute, says that several factors are making the situation particularly nettlesome. "Barzani is a difficult man to manage," Baran said. "On the PKK issue, Barzani doesn't want to talk about it, and the Americans can't make him talk about it.... Also, on the military side, basically the north of Iraq is the only stable place in Iraq, and the Americans don't want to create instability." She continued, "I also think, unfortunately, that in [Bush's] second term, people making decisions are tired, exhausted, frustrated, and they are not able to think in the longer term. People are thinking: 18 months."

Asked for comment on the PKK situation, one State Department official, speaking on background, said that U.S. reluctance to move more decisively against the PKK now was driven by simple realities: "There are no U.S. troops in Kurdistan," the official said. "America has a multiplicity of problems in Iraq, and the PKK are not killing Americans."

"The Turks are really pissed," the official acknowledged, "but they have pulled back a bit" recently. He noted that Turkey is participating in a meeting in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt, on May 3-4 involving the foreign ministers of Iraq's neighbors, and that the Turks "have even been helpful in leaning on the Iranians in the past, and to get the Iranians to participate in regional meetings." [...]

But Turkish experts say that Washington should not take the relationship and such good offices for granted. Before the Iraq war, Baran said, the situation between Turkey and its own Kurdish population was improving dramatically. "The PKK was almost completely delegitimized in the eyes of Turkish Kurds, and political will was good. Now the United States is telling the Turks, 'Our terrorists are the bad guys, but we are not going to touch your terrorists.' " The Turks say they have done their part in working with Iraqi Kurds, providing them with electricity from Turkey and investing in Kurdish companies. Now, Baran said, Turks feel that it's time for the U.S. and the Iraqi Kurds to do something for them.

For their part, Iraqi Kurds appear relatively content with Washington's de facto position on the PKK issue, which essentially kicks it down the road. "The United States has handled this correctly for now," says Qubad Talabani, the Washington representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government and the son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. "They have tried hard to encourage a dialogue between the Kurdistan Regional Government and Turkey on this issue. They understand that there can be no military solution to the PKK issue, neither inside Iraq nor Turkey.The United States has appointed a seasoned and decorated general, [retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph] Ralston, to lead this effort, but unfortunately his mission and our requests for dialogue are handcuffed by some in Turkey that constantly reject dialogue."

The Iraqi Kurdish political leadership has so far been unwilling to dislodge the PKK from its territory. Some analysts suggest that it wants to use the issue as a bargaining chip for other, larger goals, including Iraqi Kurds' demand for a referendum before the end of the year on the status of the ethnically mixed Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Both Turkey and Iraqi Arabs fiercely oppose the city's coming under Kurdish control and are seeking to delay any such referendum. Ankara's opposition is said to be based in large part on the concern that if the Kurds were to gain control of Kirkuk's oil and natural-gas resources, the added wealth would bring them one step closer to establishing a viable, independent Iraqi Kurdistan -- something that Turkey considers a serious threat to its territorial integrity because so many Kurds live in southeastern Turkey.

Amid the official stalemate and malaise, some outside of the administration are looking for creative solutions to the PKK problem. Later this month, a private group of policy experts -- American, Turkish, and Kurdish specialists affiliated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy -- plan to travel to northern Iraq to see if an early-1990s agreement between Iraqi Kurds and Iran over armed Iranian Kurdish parties based in the area can be refashioned to apply to the PKK. [...]

The Turks move. "THOUSANDS OF TURKISH TROOPS HAVE CROSSED THE BORDER INTO NORTHERN IRAQ TO CHASE KURDISH GUERRILLAS, TURKISH OFFICIALS TELL THE AP." (Link).

Great LAT Meghan Stack piece on Saudi Arabia, one US ally that seems more screwed up than most of its enemies. Via Kevin Drum.

WP: "In the White House, Pardon Is A Topic Too Sensitive to Mention."

Brad Schlozman up at Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy is complaining about a record number of I don't recalls. Schlozman said he'd spent 25-30 hours preparing for his testimony with others from DOJ.

AP: Libby sentenced to 30 months. WP. Marcy's blogging the sentencing hearing here, and Jeff Lomonaco and Murray Waas have a book out today based on the trial transcripts, The United States v. I. Lewis Libby.

The San Diego Union Tribune reports on a 13 page document former San Diego US attorney Carol Lam has given to the House Judiciary committee:

The document contains Lam's responses to questions from the committee, and it sheds some new light on just how aggressively the Justice Department shoved her out the door.

A few days after learning last December that she was to submit her resignation effective Jan. 31, Lam asked Michael Battle, then the head of the U.S. attorney executive office, for extra time to ensure "an orderly transition" especially regarding pending investigations and several significant cases that were set to begin trial in the next few months, Lam wrote in her answers.

At the time, Lam was investigating corruption cases stemming from her successful prosecution of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the Rancho Santa Fe Republican who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion charges after admitting to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes. Cunningham was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison. Besides Lam, four other prosecutors were presiding over corruption investigations when they were dismissed.

About a month passed when Lam got a call from Michael Elston, Gonzales' former chief of staff, telling her that her request for extra time was "not being received positively" and that she "should stop thinking in terms of the cases in the office."

"He insisted that I had to depart in a matter of weeks, not months, and that these instructions were 'coming from the very highest level of the government,'" Lam wrote.

To add insult, Battle later accused Lam of prematurely leaking her departure to the press, Lam wrote, then criticized her for speaking with other dismissed U.S. attorneys about their firings.

The Politico's Mike Allen: Key Bush backers rally to Fred Thompson.

The Balt Sun's Siobhan Gorman blogs about new ultra-corporate internal marketing efforts of the notoriously publicity-shy NSA. "The two-part campaign will employ a set of 'cascading messages' repeated down through NSA’s hierarchy, as well as 'viral' marketing 'to generate excitement and unity enterprise-wide,' one planning document says." It all sounds as culturally counterintuitive, consulting firm-imposed and difficult for the NSA as you would imagine.

Reuters: Louisiana Democratic Congressman William Jefferson indicted on 16 counts.

Guardian:

The US military's system of tribunals at Guantánamo Bay was thrown into chaos today after a military judge threw out all charges against a young Canadian detainee.
One senior military official said the ruling in the case of Omar Khadr could have a "huge impact" on the controversial tribunals at the US navy's detention centre in Cuba, the Associated Press reported.

The judge said Mr Khadr - who was captured in Afghanistan as a suspected Taliban fighter in 2002 when he was aged 15 - did not meet the definition of those subject to trial under the new laws in effect at the tribunals.

Army Colonel Peter Brownback, the tribunal judge, said a military review board had labelled Mr Khadr an "enemy combatant" during a 2004 hearing in Guantánamo.

However, the Military Commissions Act adopted by the US Congress in 2006 said only "unlawful enemy combatants" could be tried in the Guantánamo tribunals.

Today Col Brownback said Khadr did not meet that strict definition. "The charges are dismissed without prejudice," the military judge said before adjourning the proceedings.

Shortly afterwards, the chief of military defence lawyers at Guantánamo Bay said the ruling had "huge" impact, because none of the remaining Guantánamo detainees has been found to be an "unlawful" enemy combatant.

Today's turn of events at the tribunal is the latest legal setback for the Bush administration over the detainees at the prison camp on the southern tip of Cuba. ...

LAT:

In March 2006, Schlozman was given an interim appointment as the U.S. attorney in Kansas City, replacing Graves.

Less than a week before the November election, Schlozman obtained indictments of four members of the liberal activist group Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, for allegedly submitting fraudulent voter registrations. The Justice Department election manual says prosecutors should refrain generally from bringing cases just before elections, out of concern that the charges could affect voting.

ACORN itself had brought the case to the attention of authorities after discovering that some of its employees were making up names of registrants as part of a voter-registration drive.

Schlozman's office, apparently in a hurry to file the case, got one of the names on the indictments wrong.

"It seems to me that the only way that could have happened was if the subject of the investigation had not been interviewed. It seems to me they were in such a rush to indict these people that they didn't bother to interview them first," said Robert Kengle, another former Justice voting rights official.

Missouri Republicans seized on the charges in the final days of the campaign. Nevertheless, Missouri voters narrowly elected Democrat Claire McCaskill over Republican incumbent Jim Talent, a victory that sank GOP hopes of maintaining control of Congress.

In April, the suit was dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled that the government failed to produce any evidence of fraud or that any Missouri resident had been denied the right to vote because of the alleged registration deficiencies.

WP: The NSC's Meghan O'Sullivan heads to Iraq at the request of President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus.

AP: "Turkish troops shelled a border area in northern Iraq early Sunday in an attack on Kurdish rebels based there, an Iraqi Kurdish leader said. The leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, said there was shelling by Turkish troops on Kurdish areas but no incursion."

NYT: How Soviet-style torture techniques became basis of Bush administration-approved interrogation methods.

... Some of those techniques have been used on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at the C.I.A.’s secret overseas jails for high-level operatives of Al Qaeda.

Many SERE veterans were appalled at the “reverse engineering” of their methods, said Charles A. Morgan III, a Yale psychiatrist who has worked closely with SERE trainers for a decade.

“How did something used as an example of what an unethical government would do become something we do?” he asked.

Iranian weapons in Afghanistan, but lack of clarity about what it means. Several reports: AP:

Small arms weapons with Iranian markings have been discovered in Afghanistan over the last few months, though NATO's top commander, Gen. Dan McNeill, has said there's no proof of direct Iranian involvement in their presence here, Thomas said.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in April that U.S. forces had intercepted Iranian-made mortars and explosives in Afghanistan, although it was not clear they were shipped directly from Iran.

Britain's Ministry of Defense has also said it was working with the international community to "step up pressure on Iran ... over its role in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"We know about illegal movements of munitions across the border from Iran to Afghanistan, destined for the Taliban," the ministry said in a statement Thursday. "We are concerned that some of these munitions are of Iranian origin."

The ministry refused to give any details about the number or type of weapons. ...

The top U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. David Accetta, said Iranian weapons are likely in the country as a result of decades of war in the region, and that he hadn't seen any evidence Iran was sending in new weapons.

"There's a lot of Russian weapons here, but that doesn't mean Russia is flying them in in packing crates," he said.

Reza Aslan in the LAT: "...The great irony, of course, is that abandoning regime change in Iran is the surest way to ensure the regime's collapse."

Frank Rich: " ... Arguably the most accurate gut check on what the country feels about Mr. Bush was a January Newsweek poll finding that a sizable American majority just wished that his 'presidency was over.' This flat-lining administration inspires contempt and dismay more than the deep-seated, long-term revulsion whipped up by Nixon; voters just can’t wait for Mr. Bush to leave Washington so that someone, anyone, can turn the page and start rectifying the damage. Yet if he lacks Nixon’s larger-than-life villainy, he will nonetheless leave Americans feeling much the way they did after Nixon fled: in a state of anger about the state of the nation. The rage is already omnipresent, and it’s bipartisan. The last New York Times/CBS News poll found that a whopping 72 percent of Americans felt their country was 'seriously off on the wrong track,' the highest figure since that question was first asked, in 1983. [...] This relatively unified America can’t be compared with that of the second Nixon term, when the violent cultural and political upheavals of the late 1960s were still fresh. But in at least one way there may be a precise political parallel in the aftermaths of two failed presidencies rent by catastrophic wars: Americans are exhausted by anger itself and are praying for the mood pendulum to swing."

The WSJ's Peggy Noonan declares Bush a threat to the Republican party: " ... The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me. For others the beginning of distance might have been Katrina and the incompetence it revealed, or the depth of the mishandling and misjudgments of Iraq. What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks. ..." Via Ed Morrissey.

Ha'aretz: "The main reason why the Israel Defense Forces is currently not recommending a large-scale ground operation in the Gaza Strip is not talked about much publicly: It is the apprehension that this summer Israel is liable to be engaged in a different war - against Syria. ... The Israeli intelligence community does not have information pointing to clear intentions on the part of Syrian President Bashar Assad to launch a war. However, there are intelligence reports about the preparations Syria is making for such a possibility: training, exercises, major arms deals. Intelligence personnel are finding it difficult to formulate a bottom line: whether Assad truly intends to go to war or whether he is merely taking measures to be on the safe side, while seeking to exert pressure on Israel to renew peace negotiations."

CQ's Jeff Stein: "Defense Officials Tried to Reverse China Policy, Says Powell Aide."

ABC: Soldiering On.

The NYT's Helene Cooper reports that Rice insists Cheney supports her leadership on policy to Iran, while sources in the White House reportedly don't deny that a member of the Office of the Vice President has been dissing that track to likeminded think tanks. Worth reading Steve Clemons' post again.

The Balt Sun's Siobhan Gorman interviews CIA director Michael Hayden about his past year heading the Agency.

Top item in a Turkish news summary from the pro-western Turkish business association Tusiad today:

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned NATO ally the United States late Tuesday against repeating any infringement of Turkish airspace on its borders with Iraq, threatening unspecified action. The warning came after airspace violations by two U.S. F-16 jets on May 24, which some Turkish media described as a deliberate attempt at intimidation as Ankara was discussing a possible cross-border operation into northern Iraq to quash the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) camps. "We warned them not to repeat this... If this happens again... if this takes a different dimension, what we will do is obvious," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview with the private NTV news channel. But he did not specify what action Turkey would take. ...

Despite U.S. assurances, the Foreign Ministry handed an official protest to a U.S. diplomat earlier Tuesday. The General Staff said the two U.S. jets remained in Turkish airspace over the border province of Hakkari for four minutes. ...

Prez advisor Dan Bartlett resigns from WH.