In this issue:

Bush Administration Still Pushing Patriot Act Expansion

Gonzalez's Hopes for Supreme Court Dashed

Sen. Hagel: Bush Should Break Out of His Cocoon

Doubts Growing Among Soldiers About Iraq War

Sanchez To Be Replaced in Iraq

Army's Top Training Force To Go to Iraq

Franks To Get British Knighthood

Gossip Columnist Picks Ridge To Replace Cheney

Halliburton Bills U.S. for 'Sailboat Fuel'

Fewer Believe Economy Is Improving

Rooney Echoes LaRouche on Danger of a Dark Age

From Volume 3, Issue Number 22 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published June 1, 2004

United States News Digest

Bush Administration Still Pushing Patriot Act Expansion

In his April 17 Saturday radio address, President Bush kicked off an effort to pressure Congress into extending the provisions of the Patriot Act, which are not due to expire until the end of 2005—something Bush had first brought up in his January State of the Union address. During the week of April 18, Bush travelled to Hershey, Pa., and Lackawanna, N.Y., to meet with law enforcement personnel to boost the Patriot Act.

Now, the Justice Department is quietly working on getting a number of changes through Congress which would signficantly expand the powers given it under the 2001 Patriot Act, according to Knight-Ridder May 22. Some of the measures are recycled from the draft "Patriot II" bill, which was dumped last year after it was leaked to a watchdog group and to the media.

Some of the provisions now making their way through Congress are:

* The "lone-wolf" provision, which would allow the government to conduct secret surveillance on suspected terrorists or spies, without proving that they have any connection with a foreign government or terrorist organization. EIR, among others, has noted that this would allow the FBI and DOJ to easily target U.S. citizens as foreign terrorists or agents. This has already passed the Senate, and is part of a larger House bill, the "Anti-Terrorism Intelligence Tools Improvement Act of 2003."

* Additional powers for the use of "national security letters," which allow the FBI to obtain business and financial records, and electronic communications, without a court order or search warrant. It would also provide a five-year prison term for anyone disclosing that he has received a national security letter. (An individual who is served with a subpoena is under no such restriction.)

* Additional powers for the DOJ to seek the death penalty in terrorism cases.

Gonzalez's Hopes for Supreme Court Dashed

White House Council Alberto Gonzalez's hopes for being appointed to the Supreme Court have been damaged by the revelation of his infamous 2001 memo declaring the Geneva Conventions "obsolete," USA Today reported May 26. Gonzales was reported to be high on President Bush's list of possible nominees to the Supreme Court, but now, as Sen. Patrick Leahy put it: "If they were planning to send his name up for the Supreme Court, this would not be the week to do it." Leahy is demanding Gonzales turn over the final memo he prepared to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Hagel: Bush Should Break Out of His Cocoon

Elisabeth Bumiller, writing in the White House letter column in the May 24 New York Times quoted Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) saying that President Bush "needs to break out of that cocoon a little bit, and listen to more advice than he gets from his Vice President and his war cabinet." The column describes President Bush's refusal to take any question during two meetings the week before, one with G-8 Foreign Ministers, and the other with Congressional Republicans.

"All presidents live in a bubble," Bumiller writes, "but Democrats, European officials and a group of moderate Republicans say that Bush lives in a bigger bubble than most."

Doubts Growing Among Soldiers About Iraq War

A May 25 story in the Washington Post noted the growing doubts among both soldiers and their families about the war in Iraq. "I think it's just a lost cause," one Army gunner said. "This has become harder than we thought. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein, that's one thing. Getting Iraqis to do what we want is another.... They have to want it or we can't give it to them."

"Last May, possibly there was a chance for this thing to succeed," he added. "People were happy. Then we started arresting people.... The Iraqis don't trust us."

"The enemy is not the same as before.... Our weak point is that they think we are evil and we're not so popular, so we become part of the mess," a medic said.

The mood has also shifted in Cumberland, Md., home of the now infamous 372nd MP Company, where shame at the activities in Abu Ghraib prison has dampened pride. There's a feeling that the 372nd soldiers "kind of got set up, but that doesn't make it right," said one businessman.

Sanchez To Be Replaced in Iraq

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is being replaced as commander of the Coalition ground forces, according to senior Defense officials who deny the move was triggered by the Abu Ghraib scandal, but is part of the regular rotation. Mooted as the leading candidates to replace the three-star Sanchez, are two four-star generals, Army vice-chief of staff Gen. George Casey, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's military assistant Gen. Bantz Craddock, with Casey said to be the front-runner. The transfer of Sanchez was expected, but the scuttlebutt was that Sanchez would get his fourth star and take over as Commander of the Southern Command. However, EIR notes that the SouthCom appointment would require a confirmation hearing, something the Administration would doubtless prefer to avoid.

Army's Top Training Force To Go to Iraq

Another sign of just how overstretched the U.S. Army has become, due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its commitments in Korea, the Balkans, and elsewhere, emerged on May 24, when the word went out that the Army is considering deploying the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment to Iraq. The 11th ACR isn't just another combat brigade, however. It provides the opposing force (or OPFOR) for brigades to fight against at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. An NTC rotation is considered essential to preparing an Army brigade for deployment. The 11th ACR's OPFOR is so good that most brigades lose in mock combat against it, but the lessons learned provide invaluable training.

"The thought that OPFOR is now being thrown into the mix in Iraq is deeply shocking, because it absolutely shows where we are now," said retired Army Col. Kenneth Allard, an author and lecturer on military strategy. "We've always managed to maintain the basic integrity of the training base. That is the seed corn of the Army." Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey added, "We are in a period of great strategic vulnerability." He warned that if current trends continue, "the U.S. Army will start coming apart, next year."

Rather than ending training rotations through the NTC (it trains about 10 brigades a year), the scheme being mooted is to replace the 11th ACR with National Guard troops. Allard notes, however, that a National Guard unit would be much easier to beat in mock combat training than the 11th ACR, lowering the quality of training.

Franks To Get British Knighthood

Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded last year's invasion of Iraq, was presented May 25, with the honorary rank of "Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire" in a private ceremony in London, a British Defense Department official reported, adding, "General Franks has been a sterling friend to the UK during a period of extreme turbulence in world affairs. This award is to recognize his exceptional and inspirational leadership of British forces during operations both in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Labour MP Alice Mahon, who opposed the Iraq war, called the knighthood "the ultimate in bad taste."

Gossip Columnist Picks Ridge To Replace Cheney

"Cocktail talk about the GOP VP nominee. Of course, it's Cheney," writes veteran gossip columnist Cindy Adams, in the May 24 New York Post. "We know it's Cheney. Everyone confirms it's Cheney. Bush respects and reveres and trusts in and leans on Cheney. It's Cheney. Cheney. Cheney. Cheney. It's Cheney. But in case it's not Cheney, the P's been VP shopping. See, if the atmosphere goes poisonous and mixes up with pro-war advisers and Halliburton and those uphill energy prices, etc., some heads must roll so that the President can keep his.

"Front-runner is Tom Ridge, whose posture works well. Whatever background underground checks need be done on the iffy, could be, maybe chance it's Ridge have already begun."

Halliburton Bills U.S. for 'Sailboat Fuel'

Drivers for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root told Knight Ridder May 21 that they have driven across Iraq more than 100 times with empty trucks, for which the company gets payments from the U.S. government, as if the trucks were carrying supplies for the war. Truckers refer to this as carrying "sailboat fuel."

This fraud, committed on behalf Dick Cheney's Halliburton, subjects the truck drivers to bomb attacks and gunfire, with numerous casualties. Trucking experts report that Halliburton-KBR bills the government thousands of dollars for each empty truck run. Knight Ridder photographed as many as 15 empty trucks in one convoy.

Fewer Believe Economy Is Improving

"The number of voters who think the economy is getting better has actually plunged," from 44% in January to 31% now, writes Terry Keenan in Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, on May 23. "So far in 2004, the Big Apple has been hit with apartment prices that now average $1 million, two-mile taxi fares that can top $10, and this week's word of a $1,000 omelette!" On Greenspan: "It would be the irony of all ironies if the now Bush-friendly Greenspan mucks up a Bush re-election yet again.... That's because inflation fears now rival employment fears among potential voters."

Rooney Echoes LaRouche on Danger of a Dark Age

On the same "60 Minutes" broadcast of May 23 in which retired USMC Gen. Anthony Zinni lashed out at the neo-cons' destructive influence on the Bush Administration and demanded their dismissal, "funny-man" Andy Rooney—who usually closes his program in a light-hearted vein—ended it with serious call for people to reflect on the implications of the prison-torture policies on U.S. standing in the world, and the future of American civilization. "I fear for the next generations," Rooney said. "We may go down like the Greek and Roman empires of the past. There may not be an America for my grandchildren and their children."

Rooney, via a photo montage, reviewed the "high" points and "low" points in American history, and said that as a result of this inhuman prison torture policy, our standing with the world has never been so low. All of the great things of the past, like the victory over fascism in World War II, are being thrown out the window. He concluded that all those who are found responsible for these atrocities—and not just the immediate participants—should be held fully accountable.

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