Saturday, October 01, 2005
AND THE CORRUPTION BEAT GOES ON
Bush administration found involved in illegal 'covert propaganda'
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) - The administration of President George W. Bush broke the law as it resorted to illegal "covert propaganda" in trying to sell its key education initiative to the public, US congressional investigators have found.
The finding, made public by the Government Accountability Office, added to a plethora of big and small ethics scandals besetting the administration and its top Republican allies and putting them on the defensive one year before congressional elections.
The investigation was ordered by Democratic Senators Edward Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg earlier this year, in the wake of reports the Education Department had paid newspaper columnist and television commentator Armstrong Williams thousands of dollars to help promote the No Child Left Behind Law.
The 2002 bipartisan measure established new testing requirements for public schools designed to ensure that students achieve an acceptable level of proficiency in reading and mathematics.
But the law came in for strong criticism from local officials and teachers' unions, who argued it did not provide sufficient funds to implement the reforms.
Under the deal, Williams produced a series of radio and television shows as well as wrote newspaper columns under his own name highlighting what he saw as the benefits of the law.
But in doing so, he failed to disclose the government paid him for these activities 186,000 dollars (150,000 euros) through Ketchum Inc., a public relations firm, according to the GAO report.
"This qualifies as the production or distribution of covert propaganda," said the investigative arm of Congress. "In our view, the department violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition when it issued task orders... without requiring Ketchum to ensure that Mr Williams disclosed to his audiences his relationship with the department."
Newspaper syndicate Tribune Media Services canceled Williams' column in January.
In addition, the department placed with the firm a total of 21 orders for producing unattributed videos showcasing the education initiative that were made to look like normal television reports and were slated for distribution to TV networks as bona fide news stories.
There is no word if any of these clips actually made it to the air.
Congressional investigators pointed out that under US law, "an agency must inform the viewing public that the government is the source of the information disseminated."
The report also suggested the administration may have illegally shifted nearly 38,500 dollars within its budget to pay for its propaganda campaign.
In statements that followed the GAO report, Senator Kennedy and Lautenberg demanded the misused money be returned to the government.
"The taxpayer funded propaganda coming from the White House is another sign of the culture of corruption that pervades the White House and Republican leadership," argued Kennedy.
The finding comes as the Republican establishment in Washington finds itself embroiled in a series of scandals ranging from the indictment of House majority leader Tom DeLay on charges related to his fundraising activities to allegations of preferential treatment of contractors helping victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist is facing an investigation into a questionable stock sale, while the probe into the illegal disclosure of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame took a new twist, after it was revealed that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Richard Cheney's chief of staff, was one of the sources of information about her.
Plame's name was leaked to the press in 2003 after her husband publicly disputed Bush's claim that
Iraq sought to buy uranium ore from Niger as part of its drive to build nuclear weapons.Friday, September 30, 2005
KATRINA DESTROYED OVER 275,000 HOMES
Friday, September 30, 2005
LET'S PUT DEVELOPERS ON THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST
Endangered Species Act gets listed
DAVIS, CALIFORNIA, Christian Science Monitor - The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has served the nation well as a last refuge for vanishing species since it was first enacted in 1973. But an effort to scuttle the act is now moving at breakneck speed through the US House of Representatives.
Last week, the chair of the House Resources Committee, Rep. Richard Pombo (news, bio, voting record) (R) of California, proposed changes to the act with a 74-page bill. The committee voted in favor and now the bill is poised for an immediate vote by the full House.
If it becomes law, Mr. Pombo's bill - which weakens current protections governing private and public lands - will be a disaster for endangered species and deepen existing divides on the issue. This is unfortunate because the time is ripe for a more moderate approach.
No one is fully satisfied with the ESA. It is not helping dwindling species enough, developers and mining and timber industries see it as impeding progress, and state officials think it intrudes on their autonomy. The current bill, however, focuses on relief for landowners to the exclusion of the interests of protected species. It misses the opportunity to offer moderate incentives to landowners to save, or improve habitat of endangered species, or involve states more in the development and enforcement of protective regulations.
The proposed changes to the ESA are centered on the premise that it is failing. Only a handful of species have recovered over the past 30 years to the point where they no longer need the law's protection. But that doesn't make the act a failure. Only nine species of the 1,300 listed as endangered since 1973 are now extinct. Rebounding takes time. By the time they get legal protection, species are typically reduced to critically low numbers.
Furthermore, a "recovered" rating requires confidence that the species will not decline again. For many species threatened by loss of habitat, there simply is no other protection.
The House bill will not help these dwindling species. It sets new deadlines for development of recovery plans, but because it would not make those plans enforceable by the courts, many would never be implemented. For at least five years, the act would not apply to pesticides, a major factor in the historic decline of species such as the bald eagle and a current problem for the Pacific salmon.
Government authorities would be given discretion to ignore many species. Protection of "threatened" species, which are not yet listed as endangered, would no longer be mandatory. The Department of Interior could also unilaterally exempt whole categories of federal actions from ESA review. History suggests the government will use any discretion it is given to avoid protecting species.
Further, the bill would provide a windfall for developers. Currently, landowners whose development projects harm endangered species have to mitigate that harm through habitat conservation planning. The proposed law would substitute a very different process. Landowners could demand review of proposed developments in a very short time and on the basis of a brief project description.
If the government failed to meet the deadline or concluded that the action would not violate the law, the landowner could develop with impunity. If the government concluded the development would harm a listed species, it would have to pay the fair market value of the land's proposed use. In other words, developers could aggressively prospect endangered habitat and receive financial reward for not building.
The Fish and Wildlife Service, on the other hand, would face the Hobson's choice of depriving endangered species of protection or draining its budget with payments to enterprising developers.
Revisiting the Endangered Species Act is a good idea. But amendments ought to help endangered species as well as developers. Pombo's bill is the wrong approach.
• Holly Doremus is a professor of law at the University of California at Davis and a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Reform.Friday, September 30, 2005
SUPERBUGS THAWING AS WE SPEAK
Arctic ice cap is melting fast, say scientists
The Grist - The Arctic ice cap has shriveled to its smallest size in a century; at this rate of shrinkage, the summer cap may vanish by 2060. Researchers who compiled the data say the process appears to have become self-sustaining: As ice melts, there's more water, which absorbs more solar radiation (white ice reflects better), thus creating more heat, thus making it harder for ice to re-form. The Arctic is "becoming a profoundly different place than we grew up thinking about," said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, with overall temperatures rising about twice as fast as in other parts of the world. Anthropogenic global warming is widely seen as the culprit. In case we weren't yet fully freaked out, other scientists speculate that melting glaciers and ice sheets may unleash ancient illnesses to which modern humans have no resistance, via viruses, bacteria, and fungi previously unknown. As the French say, l'eek!
straight to the source: The New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, 28 Sep 2005
straight to the source: BBC News, Richard Black, 28 Sep 2005
straight to the source: The Independent, Kate Ravilious, 28 Sep 2005
Thursday, September 29, 2005
ARE YOU IN THE OIL BUSINESS OR THE ENERGY BUSINESS?
Fossil Fuels Set to Become Relics, Says Research Group
WASHINGTON, D.C., Sep 28 (OneWorld) - Energy drawn from the wind, tide, sun, Earth's heat, and farm waste is poised to begin replacing oil and other fossil fuels, a prominent research group said Wednesday in a wake-up call to industry executives and government officials worldwide.
''Energy markets are about to experience a seismic shift,'' Christopher Flavin, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute, said in a speech to oil executives and energy ministers in Johannesburg, South Africa, site of the 18th World Petroleum Congress.
''The question for oil executives is whether you're in the oil business or the energy business.''
The conference's 5,000 participants included ExxonMobil President Rex Tillerson and Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi, Worldwatch said.
To be sure, oil accounts for about 30 percent of the world's energy use while renewable energy sources make up a slim two percent. However, according to Flavin, the market share of renewable energy sources was growing apace.
Unlike fossil fuels, of which there is a limited supply, renewable energy--including solar, wind, and geothermal power and biofuels--is derived from sources that are continually replaced.
Most renewable energies are non-polluting. By contrast, scientists say the burning of fossil fuels contributes to global warming, which in turn drives the increased incidence and intensity of major storms such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Flavin spoke against a backdrop of soaring oil prices and demand. World oil consumption increased by 3.4 percent in 2004, the fastest rise in 16 years, Worldwatch said earlier this year in a report citing U.N., industry, and other sources.
However, the research group added, oil production is falling in 33 of the 48 largest oil-producing countries. These include six of the 11 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (
OPEC).
In the continental United States, the think tank said, oil production peaked at eight million barrels per day in 1970 and fell to 2.9 million barrels daily last year.
Production of biofuels, wind power, and solar energy are all growing at rates of 20-30 percent per year, compared with growth rates of around two percent for oil and gas, Flavin said.
The costs of renewable energy were falling fast, news reports Wednesday quoted Flavin as telling the conference. Wind power cost 46 cents per kilowatt-hour in 1980 but now costs less than six cents.
New energy sources are attracting roughly $30 billion in investment annually, he added, with Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, and California leading the emerging market.
''Already, 35 million homes in China get their hot water from solar collectors. That is more than the rest of the world combined,'' Flavin told the Reuters news agency in Johannesburg.
''There are prospects for real take-offs in solar and wind power in China, and not just hot water for homes but in industry,'' he added. ''State-owned industries and private companies there are investing heavily in renewables.''
Renewable sources account for 25 percent of Sweden's energy use and 45 percent in Norway. The United States lagged behind, with only 4.2 percent of its energy consumption coming from renewable sources.
Energy companies and governments were driving growth in renewables, Flavin said, with firms including Royal Dutch Shell Group, BP, and Mitsubishi among the major players.
Additionally, 48 countries now have policies and incentives promoting renewable energy, he added.Wednesday, September 28, 2005
WE WANT BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY
You Can't Make This Stuff Up
Laurie David, Huffington Post - This morning, the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee will hit an all-time low when it comes to wasting taxpayer time and money by calling in science fiction writer Michael Crichton to testify on global warming. I kid you not.
Only a madman would think it's a good idea to have a guy paid to make stuff up testify on a serious scientific issue with national security implications. Enter Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the aforementioned committee -- a man who repeatedly claims that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people".
Who is he planning to call next, Professor Irwin Corey?
Crichton's latest novel alleges that environmentalists created global warming to make it easier to collect fundraising dollars. At a time when we cannot afford to waste another minute in protecting the American people against continued extreme weather events, having Crichton testify is an unbelievable misuse of public resources.
Perhaps Inhofe should call Stephen King as his next witness, because if the Senator's global warming-denying viewpoint prevails, our future will surely be a horrific nightmare.
stopglobalwarming.orgWednesday, September 28, 2005
CORRUPTION AS USUAL FROM THE GRAND OLD PARTY
ONE SANCTIMONIOUS ASSHOLE INDICTED OF CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY, ANOTHER SANCTIMONIOUS ASSHOLE INVESTIGATED FOR INSIDER TRADING - JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE TOP LEVELS OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
DeLay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.
DeLay, 58, was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.
DeLay is the first House leader to be indicted while in office in at least a century, according to congressional historians.
"I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today," DeLay said in a statement.
Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., will recommend that Rep. David Dreier (news, bio, voting record) of California step into those duties, said GOP congressional officials. Some of the duties may go to the GOP whip, Rep. Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record) of Missouri. The Republican rank and file may meet as early as Wednesday night to act on Hastert's recommendation.
Blunt said he was confident DeLay would be cleared of the allegations and return to his leadership job. "Unfortunately, Tom DeLay's effectiveness as Majority Leader is the best explanation for what happened in Texas today," Blunt said.
Criminal conspiracy is a state felony punishable by six months to two years in a state jail and a fine of up to $10,000. The potential two-year sentence forces DeLay to step down under House Republican rules.
At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the president still considers DeLay — a fellow Texan — a friend and an effective leader in Congress.
"Congressman DeLay is a good ally, a leader who we have worked closely with to get things done for the American people," McClellan said. "I think the president's view is that we need to let the legal process work."
The indictment puts the Republicans — who control the White House, Senate and House — on the defensive. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., also is fending off question of ethical improprieties. Federal prosecutors and the
Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into Frist's sale of stock in HCA Inc., the hospital operating company founded by his family.
Less than a week ago, a former White House official was arrested in the investigation of Jack Abramoff, a high-powered lobbyist and fundraiser.
The indictment accused DeLay of a conspiracy to "knowingly make a political contribution" in violation of Texas law outlawing corporate contributions. It alleged that DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority political action committee accepted $155,000 from companies, including Sears Roebuck, and placed the money in an account.
The PAC then wrote a $190,000 check to an arm of the Republican National Committee and provided the committee a document with the names of Texas State House candidates and the amounts they were supposed to received in donations.
The indictment included a copy of the check.
"The defendants entered into an agreement with each other or with TRMPAC (Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee) to make a political contribution in violation of the Texas election code," says the four-page indictment. "The contribution was made directly to the Republican National Committee within 60 days of a general election."
The indictment against the second-ranking, and most assertive Republican leader came on the final day of the grand jury's term. It followed earlier indictments of a state political action committee founded by DeLay and three of his political associates.
Kevin Madden, DeLay's spokesman, dismissed the charge as politically motivated.
"This indictment is nothing more than prosecutorial retribution by a partisan Democrat," Madden said, citing prosecutor Ronnie Earle, a Democrat.
Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, dismissed the indictment as the work of an "unapologetic Democrat partisan" — Earle — and said, "Democrats resent Tom DeLay because he routinely defeats them both politically and legislatively."
Madden later added: "They could not get Tom DeLay at the polls. They could not get Mr. DeLay on the House floor. Now they're trying to get him into the courtroom. This is not going to detract from the Republican agenda."
The grand jury action is expected to have immediate consequences in the House, where DeLay is largely responsible for winning passage of the Republican legislative program.
Democrats have kept up a crescendo of criticism of DeLay's ethics, citing three times last year that the House ethics committee admonished DeLay for his conduct.
"The criminal indictment of Majority Leader Tom Delay is the latest example that Republicans in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
At the White House, McClellan bristled at a question about Democratic claims that Republicans have grown arrogant in their use of power and flaunt rules after years of controlling the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.
McClellan said the Republican Party has made policy that has improved the lives of Americans, and the White House stands by that record.
"We can sit here and try to rush to judgment, but I don't think that's a fair thing to do," McClellan said. "We need to let the legal process work."
However, DeLay retains his seat representing Texas' 22nd congressional district, suburbs southwest of Houston. He denies that he committed any crime.
As a sign of loyalty to DeLay after the grand jury returned indictments against three of his associates, House Republicans last November repealed a rule requiring any of their leaders to step aside if indicted. The rule was reinstituted in January after lawmakers returned to Washington from the holidays fearing the repeal might create a backlash from voters.
DeLay is the center of an ethics swirl in Washington. The 11-term congressman was admonished last year by the House ethics committee on three separate issues and is the center of a political storm this year over lobbyists paying his and other lawmakers' tabs for expensive travel abroad.
Wednesday's indictment stems from a plan DeLay helped set in motion in 2001 to help Republicans win control of the Texas House in the 2002 elections for the first time since Reconstruction.
A state political action committee he created, Texans for a Republican Majority, was indicted earlier this month on charges of accepting corporate contributions for use in state legislative races. Texas law prohibits corporate money from being used to advocate the election or defeat of candidates; it is allowed only for administrative expenses.
With GOP control of the Texas legislature, DeLay then engineered a redistricting plan that enabled the GOP take six Texas seats in the U.S. House away from Democrats — including one lawmaker switching parties — in 2004 and build its majority in Congress.
Frist Made At Least $2 Million on Insider Trade
Huffington Post - New details of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's dumping of HCA stock just before it plummeted should give the SEC even more to chew over as it begins a formal investigation, with subpoena power, into Frist's contact with insiders at his family-founded and -run company.
A new analysis by my Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has found that Senator Frist made between between $2 and $6 million by selling his HCA holdings just before stocks plummeted in the face of a bad earnings report. In addition, overly rosy earnings projections made by HCA executives just as Frist and HCA insiders were disposing of the stock en masse, point to a coverup by insiders intent on keeping stock prices high until a disappointing earnings report surfaced.
Frist trust agreements made public today by Consumerwatchdog.org also show that since the founding of his trust, Senator Frist directed trustees not to sell his HCA stock. Each of the Senator’s trust agreements acknowledged their high concentration in HCA stock, and specifically relieved trustees ‘from any obligation the Trustee might otherwise have to diversify the investments.’ In other words, this was a seeing-eye trust, not a blind trust.
As subpoenas begin to fly, Senator Frist will have a lot of explaining to do. My consumer group filed ethics complaints with Frist dating back to 2003 over his HCA holdings -- and he ignored them. Frist's sudden shock of "conscience" either has to do with presidential amibitions or pure greed.Wednesday, September 28, 2005
HERE COMES THE RECESSION
Credit Card Payments Hindered by Gas Prices
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The percentage of credit card payments that were past due shot up to a record high in the second quarter as surging gasoline prices strained budgets and made it difficult for some people to pay their bills.
The American Bankers Association reported Wednesday that the seasonally adjusted percentage of credit card accounts 30 or more days past due rose in the April-to-June quarter to 4.81 percent. That followed a delinquency rate of 4.76 percent in the first quarter and was the highest since the association began collecting this information in 1973.
"The rise in gas prices is really stretching budgets to the breaking point for some people," the association's chief economist, Jim Chessen, said in an interview. "Gas prices are taking huge chunks out of wallets, leaving some individuals with little left to meet their financial obligations."
While Chessen mostly blamed high gasoline prices for the rise in credit card delinquencies, other factors also played a role, he said.
With personal savings rates dismally low, people have less of a cushion to absorb the big jumps in energy prices, Chessen said. The personal savings rate dipped to a record low of negative 0.6 percent in July.
Rising borrowing costs also probably contributed to the spike in credit card delinquencies, he said.
The Federal Reserve has been tightening credit since June 2004. That has caused commercial banks' prime lending rate to rise to 6.75 percent, the highest in four years. These rates are used for many short-term consumer loans, including some credit cards and popular home equity lines of credit.
After Hurricane Katrina, gasoline prices jumped past $3 a gallon before calming down. Although damage to oil facilities was less than feared from Hurricane Rita, economists expect gasoline prices to stay high.
The double blow from the two hurricanes is expected to slow overall economic activity and hiring in the months ahead, economists say.
Against this backdrop, credit card delinquencies are likely to remain high in the coming quarters, Chessen suggested.
The association's survey also showed that the delinquency rate on a composite of other types of consumers loans, including auto loans and home equity loans, climbed to 2.22 percent in the second quarter, up from 2.03 percent in the first quarter.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
IF UNCLE SAM CAN DO IT, SO CAN WE!
US falls silent on Malaysia abuses: rights group
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - The United States has quietly dropped its push for major trading partner Malaysia to improve its human rights record, shamed by its own recent record at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S.-based rights group said on Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch, in a report condemning Malaysia's detention without trial of people deemed security threats, quoted an unnamed U.S. State Department official as saying Washington had quit putting pressure on Malaysia by the end of 2003.
"With what we're doing in Guantanamo, we're on thin ice to push on this," the report quoted the senior State Department official as telling Human Rights Watch in December 2003.
Both Washington and Britain, once prominent critics of Malaysia's use of its Internal Security Act (ISA), have fallen silent on the issue since making preventive detention a pillar of their own crackdown on Islamic militants, the report said.
This silence is taken by Malaysia as a green light to continue detaining people indefinitely without charge, it said, citing eyewitness allegations of ill-treatment of over 25 people in Malaysia's Kamunting detention center in December 2004.
"A (Malaysian) cabinet minister told Human Rights Watch that the U.S. no longer criticizes Malaysia's use of the ISA because of U.S. detention practices at Guantanamo Bay," the report added.
Malaysia's Internal Security Act allows the government to detain people indefinitely without trial and is a legacy of British rule in the late 1940s, when the then colony declared a state of emergency in its fight against communist rebels.
The communist insurgency had already fizzled by the time Malaysia gained independence in 1957 but the emergency provisions continued in the 1960 act. It began to be used against a range of perceived security threats, to stifle dissent, critics say.
Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, a minister in the department of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, said the United States had stopped pressuring Malaysia to end its use of the ISA.
"They are not happy if we release ISA detainees because they think that we are not cooperating in the fight against terrorism," he told Reuters.
"If the Americans feel strongly we should retain the ISA, then we should cooperate with them."
As of this month, Malaysia has 112 ISA detainees, including 65 alleged members of Asian Islamic militant network Jemaah Islamiah, nine alleged members of local militant group Kumpulan Militan Malaysia, 22 detained for counterfeiting currency and 13 accused of document falsification, Human Rights Watch said.
One detainee is alleged to have worked with Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan to sell nuclear secrets, and there are two women, including Norawizah Lee Abdullah, wife of Indonesian JI member Hambali, now in U.S. custody, it added.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
DEBATE OVER, EVEN THE FRIKKIN GOVERNMENT SEZ WE'RE FUCKING UP THE CLIMATE
Gov't: Effect of Greenhouse Gases Rising
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The effect of greenhouse gases on the Earth's atmosphere has increased 20 percent since 1990, a new government index says.
The Annual Greenhouse Gas Index was released Tuesday by the Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.
Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide accumulate in the atmosphere as a result of industrial and other processes. They can help trap solar heat, somewhat like a greenhouse, resulting in a gradual warming of the Earth's atmosphere.
The Earth's average temperature increased about 1 degree Fahrenheit during the 20th century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that continuing increases could have serious effects on crops, glaciers, the spread of disease, rising sea levels and other changes.
In its new analysis the laboratory, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, compares the amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons in the air. Those gases have been sampled for many years.
The index was set to a reading of 1 as of 1990 and the lab said it is currently 1.20, indicating an increase of 20 percent.
"The AGGI will serve as a gauge of success or failure of future efforts to curb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere both by natural and human-engineered processes," said David Hofmann, CMDL director.
The index is expected to be updated each April.
"This index provides us with a valuable benchmark for tracking the composition of the atmosphere as we seek to better understand the dynamics of Earth's climate," said NOAA Administrator Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr.
In the current reading, for every million air molecules there are about 375 carbon dioxide molecules, two are methane and less than one is a nitrous oxide molecule. The CFC's make up less than one molecule in a billion in the atmosphere but play a role in regulating Earth's climate and are a key factor in the depletion of the protective ozone layer, NOAA researchers say.
The gases produce an effect known as radiative forcing. It is a shift in the balance between solar radiation coming into the atmosphere and Earth's radiation going out. Radiative forcing, as measured by the index, is calculated from the atmospheric concentration of each contributing gas and the per-molecule climate forcing of each gas.
The lab said most of the increase measured since 1990 is due to carbon dioxide, which now accounts for about 62 percent of the radiative forcing by all long-lived greenhouse gases.
NOAA said the 1990 baseline was chosen because greenhouse gas emissions targeted by the international Kyoto Protocol also are indexed to 1990.
___
On the Net:
NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Lab: http://www.cmdl.noaa.govTuesday, September 27, 2005
WHAT FREEDOM ACTUALLY MEANS
Global war on women
By Ralph Peters, USA Today
The greatest social revolution in history is underway all around us: The emancipation of women. Advanced in our own society, elsewhere the battle for women's rights lies at the heart of colossal struggles over the future of great religions and civilizations.
The Washington establishment would shrink from any such claim, but the Global War on Terror is a fight over the social, economic and cultural roles of women. The core issues for the terrorists are the interpretation of God's will and the continued oppression of women. Nothing so threatens Islamic extremists as the freedom Western women enjoy.
Equal partners
The sudden transition of women from men's property to men's partners in our own country unleashed dazzling creative energies. In the historical blink of an eye, we doubled our effective human capital - and made our society immeasurably more humane. Our half-century of stunning economic growth has many roots, but none goes deeper than the expansion of opportunities for women.
But such unprecedented freedom threatens traditional societies. Behavior patterns that prevailed for millennia are suddenly in doubt. Relationships that granted males the power of life and death over female relatives have disappeared from successful cultures. Defensively, the failing cultures left behind cling harder than ever to the old ways amid the tumult of global change.
The true symbols of the War on Terror are the Islamic veil and the two-piece woman's business suit.
The math is basic. No civilization that excludes half its population from full participation in society and the economy can compete with the United States and its key allies. Yet Middle Eastern societies, especially, have dug in their heels to resist change. Some, such as Turkey, Pakistan and
Iran, have tumbled backward.
Islamist terrorists have formed the last, great boy's club, meeting in caves and warning girls to stay out - or, in the case of the 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, demanding that women be kept from his grave to avoid polluting it. Their vision offers women fewer rights by far than those enjoyed by the wives of the prophet Mohammed. They are women-hating sadists for whom faith is an excuse. Their fears are primal.
The good news is that the forces of oppression can make plenty of tactical mischief but can't achieve strategic success. No society in which women are veiled and sequestered can achieve the dynamism and force of one in which women are senators, judges, CEOs, doctors and military pilots. Freedom will win, if not swiftly.
The bad news is that this is a truly global struggle involving not only Islamist thugs terrified by female sexuality, but also reactionary forces in our own society. The Global War Against Women is still being waged on the home front, too.
Without questioning the integrity of those who believe that life begins at conception, the struggle to overturn
Roe v. Wade can also be viewed as an attempt to turn back the clock on women's freedom. Opposing such a reversal isn't a matter of thinking abortion admirable, but of accepting the magnificent revolutionary principle that no man has a right to tell any woman what she can or cannot do with her body.
Attempts to interfere with another citizen's liberty are worthy of Osama bin Laden, not of Americans.
Likewise, the ideologically driven reluctance of the
Food and Drug Administration to approve the "morning-after pill" for general use is a vestige of patriarchal tyranny that would please Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in
Iraq. Longing to restore the tyrannical pattern that governed social relations down the ages, our extremists demand that women's options be restricted, that their bodies be treated as chattels of the state.
Women deny rights
Nor should we be surprised that women stand among those who would deny rights to other women. Their counterparts are the African crones who demand that young girls undergo genital mutilation just as they did, or the women of the Middle East who insist that wearing a chador protects them. They are the champions of the small morality of rules over the greater morality of freedom.
The greatest moral advance has been the attainment of basic human rights by women. It's also the most threatening development to those daunted by change, who cling to a mythologized past and fear the future - whether in a Saudi-funded madrassa or protesting outside a U.S.
Planned Parenthood clinic. Around the world, troubled souls continue to insist that women are the source of sin and must be kept in line for their own good. Theirs is a prescription for suffering, dreariness and stagnation.
In traveling the globe, I've witnessed far more instances of the mistreatment of women than I care to recall, but the one that always leaps to mind is local and superficially benign: In the southern heat of a Washington summer, it's common to see a male Middle Eastern tourist comfortably dressed in a polo shirt and shorts trailed by a staggering woman wrapped from head to toe in flapping black robes, eyes peering out through a mask. It offends me to meet that image in my country - or anywhere.
We do not think of our troops abroad as fighting for women's rights. But they are. This is the titanic struggle of our time, the liberation of fully half of humanity. Islamist terror is only one aspect of it. But we can be certain of two things: In the end, freedom will win. And no society that torments women will succeed in the 21st century.
Ralph Peters is the author of New Glory, Expanding America's Global SupremacyTuesday, September 27, 2005
UMMM, DON'T STOP BUYING AND STUFF, OKAY?
Greenspan Cautions on Risk of Rising Rates
WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan issued a fresh warning on Tuesday that investors shouldn't be lulled into a false sense of security by the economy's long stretch of low interest rates.
"History cautions that extended periods of low concern about credit risk have invariably been followed by reversal, with an attendant fall in the prices of risky assets," Greenspan said in a speech delivered via satellite to a meeting of the National Association for Business Economics in Chicago.
Greenspan, in Tuesday's speech, didn't specify what risky assets he was referring to. But the Fed chief has been sounding an alarm for months — including an emphatic warning on Monday — about the perils to home owners and lenders using risky and exotic types of mortgages.
In his remarks Tuesday, Greenspan repeated worries he has expressed in the past — that a rise in interest rates may spell trouble for some investors who are counting on rates to stay low for an extended period of time.
"Such developments apparently reflect not only market dynamics but also the all-too-evident alternating and infectious bouts of human euphoria and distress and the instability they engender," he said.
The country enjoyed some of the lowest mortgage rates in more than four decades, when the Federal Reserve ratcheted down a key interest it controlled to the lowest level in 46-years. However, since June 2004, the Fed has been raising rates gradually to keep inflation in check.
This Fed campaign is beginning to have an impact on long-term interest rates set by financial markets. While long-term rates — such as those on mortgages — are still considered low, analysts do believe that they will move higher in coming months.
Low mortgage rates powered home sales to record highs four years in a row and are on track to set a new record this year. The hot housing market has sent home prices skyrocketing.
Greenspan said it is "difficult to suppress growing market exuberance when the economic environment is perceived as more stable."
The economy, he said, has shown incredible resilience in the face of major shocks, including the bursting of the stock market bubble in 2000 that wiped out trillions of dollars in paper wealth and the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Even now, coping with steep rises in oil and natural gas prices over the last two years, the economy thus far has weathered "reasonably well" this situation, Greenspan said.
Greenspan devoted part of his speech to an extensive defense of the Fed's failure to deflate the stock market bubble of the 1990s. He again stated his belief that it would have required the Fed to push interest rates so high it could have triggered a serious recession.
He acknowledged, however, that the Fed was troubled as stock prices soared.
"We at the Fed were uncomfortable with a stock market that appeared as early as 1996 to disconnect from its moorings," he said.
Despite this concern, he and other Fed policy-makers believed that "we would have needed to risk precipitating a significant recession, with unknown consequences," to have any impact on the roaring stock market at that time.
Greenspan on Monday offered his most extensive thoughts thus far on the housing market with a two-pronged message. He issued a fresh warning about risky mortgages, saying in the event of a widespread cooling in the housing market certain borrowers and lenders "could be exposed to significant losses."
At the same time, Greenspan said most homeowners are in a fairly good position to weather a shock if prices drop.
"The vast majority of homeowners have a sizable equity cushion with which to absorb a potential decline in house prices," he told a bankers conference in California.Tuesday, September 27, 2005
LOOKS LIKE *NOW* IS THE TIME FOR THE BLAME GAME
Yeah, more press conferences sure would have helped get water to the Superdome, Brownie... LET THE SPIN BEGIN!
Brown Blames 'Dysfunctional' Louisiana
"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Brown told a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe.
The storm slammed into the Gulf Coast on Monday, Aug. 29.
Brown's defense drew a scathing response from Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), D-La.
"I find it absolutely stunning that this hearing would start out with you, Mr. Brown, laying the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans."
Brown, who for many became a symbol of government failures in the natural disaster that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people, rejected accusations that he was too inexperienced for the job.
"I've overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it," Brown said.
Brown resigned as the head of FEMA earlier this month after being removed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from responsibility in the stricken areas.
Brown, who joined FEMA in 2001 and ran it for more than two years, was previously an attorney who held several local government and private posts, including leading the International Arabian Horse Association.
Brown in his opening statement said he had made several "specific mistakes" in dealing with the storm, and listed two.
One, he said, was not having more media briefings.
As to the other, he said: "I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences, and work together. I just couldn't pull that off."
Both Blanco and Nagin are Democrats.
"The people of FEMA are being tired of being beat up, and they don't deserve it," Brown said.
The hearing was largely boycotted by Democrats, who want an independent investigation conducted into government failures, not one run by congressional Republicans.
But Jefferson — who is not a committee member — accepted the panel's invitation to grill Brown.
Referring to Brown's description of his "mistakes," Jefferson said: "I think that's a very weak explanation of what happened, and very incomplete explanation of what happened. I don't think that's going to cut it, really."
Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., cautioned against too narrowly assigning blame.
"At the end of the day, I suspect that we'll find that government at all levels failed the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama and the Gulf Coast," said Davis.
Davis pushed Brown on what he and the agency he led should have done to evacuate New Orleans, restore order in the city and improve communication among law enforcement agencies.
Brown said: "Those are not FEMA roles. FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications."
In part of his testimony, Brown pumped his hand up and down for emphasis.Monday, September 26, 2005
OK, KIDS - CAN YOU SAY "PROFITEERING" AND "CRONYISM"?
Questions over Katrina contracts: New York Times
NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to clean up after Hurricane Katrina were awarded without bidding or with limited competition, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The newspaper, citing government records, said some of the bids are provoking concern among auditors and government officials about the potential for favoritism or abuse.
The first detailed tally of commitments from federal agencies since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast four weeks ago shows more than 15 contracts exceed $100 million, including five of $500 million or more. Most were for clearing trees, homes and cars strewn across the region; purchasing mobile homes; or providing trucks, ships, buses and planes.
Already, the Times said, questions have been raised about the political connections of two contractors -- the Shaw Group and Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton that have been represented by lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's ex-campaign manager and former head of FEMA.
"When you do something like this, you do increase the vulnerability for fraud, plain waste, abuse and mismanagement," the Times quoted Richard Skinner, inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, as saying. "We are very apprehensive about what we are seeing."
Bills have come in for deals that apparently were clinched with a handshake, with no documentation to back them up, said Skinner, who declined to provide details.
Some industry and government officials questioned the costs of debris-removal contracts, saying the Army Corps of Engineers had allowed a rate that was too high, the Times said.
Congressional investigators are also looking into the $568 million awarded to AshBritt, a Pompano Beach, Florida company that was a client of the former lobbying firm of Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, the Times said.
The newspaper said some businesses awarded large contracts have records of performing similar work, but they also have had some problems. CH2M Hill and the Fluor Corp., two engineering companies awarded a total of $250 million in contracts, were previously cited by regulators for safety violations at a weapons plant cleanup.
The Bechtel Corp., awarded a contract that could be worth $100 million, is under scrutiny for its oversight of the "Big Dig" construction project in Boston, the Times said.
And Kellogg, Brown & Root, which was given $60 million in contracts, was rebuked by federal auditors for unsubstantiated billing from the Iraq reconstruction and criticized for bills like $100-per-bag laundry service. All of the companies have publicly defended their performance.Monday, September 26, 2005
WOULD YOU BELIEVE...
Don Adams, the comic-actor who played bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart on the hit 1960s spy-spoof series "Get Smart," has died. He was 82.
He was born Donald James Yarmy in New York City. His father, who ran a modest string of New York restaurants, was of Hungarian-Jewish descent, but Adams was raised in his mother's Roman Catholic faith.
A lifelong movie buff, Adams got his feet wet as an entertainer by doing movie star impressions for his classmates at De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx.
He dropped out of high school at 16 in 1941 and, lying about his age, joined the Marines Corps. He served in the Pacific, where he contracted malaria on Guadalcanal, and later served as a stateside drill instructor.
Would you believe it? So long, Don.
Monday, September 26, 2005
WHAT REAL PATRIOTS LOOK LIKE
Officer's Road Led Him Outside Army
Capt. Ian Fishback repeatedly voiced his concern about prisoner abuse in Iraq to his superiors, but felt he was being brushed off.
WASHINGTON, Los Angeles Times — When Army Capt. Ian Fishback told his company and battalion commanders that soldiers were abusing Iraqi prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention, he says, they told him those rules were easily skirted.
When he wrote a memo saying Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was wrong in telling Congress that the Army follows the Geneva dictates, his lieutenant colonel responded only: "I am aware of Fishback's concerns."
And when Fishback found himself in the same room as Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey at Ft. Benning, Ga., he again complained about prisoner abuse. He said Harvey told him that "corrective action was already taken."
At every turn, it seemed, the decorated young West Point graduate, the son of a Vietnam War veteran from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, whose wife is serving with the Army in Iraq, felt that the military had shut him out.
So he turned to those he knows best. He sought guidance from fellow infantry commanders and his West Point classmates, and learned that they agreed with him that abuse of prisoners was widespread and that officers weren't adequately trained in how to handle them.
Then, in a lengthy chronology obtained Saturday by The Times, recounting what he saw in Iraq and his numerous efforts to get the Army's attention, he wrote that "Harvey is wrong." He wrote that Army guidance was "too vague for officers to enforce American values." He concluded that violations of the Geneva Convention were "systematic, and the Army is misleading America."
This summer, after weighing the possible effects on his career, he stepped outside the Army's chain of command and telephoned the Human Rights Watch advocacy group. He later met with aides on the Senate Armed Services Committee. On Friday, he authorized them to make public his allegations, along with those of two sergeants, of widespread prisoner abuse they had witnessed when they served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 as members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division.
Within hours, the Army announced it had opened a criminal investigation.
The review is the first major investigation by the military of widespread prisoner abuse outside the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, and the first time such a review has targeted soldiers in the regular Army rather than the National Guardsmen and reservists in the Abu Ghraib case.
But for Fishback, whom friends describe as a deeply religious Christian and patriot who prays before each meal and can quote from the Constitution, the ordeal may be just beginning.
Army officials have temporarily furloughed him from Special Operations training school at Ft. Bragg, N.C., to make him available to the Criminal Investigation Command as it sorts through his allegations.
And sources close to the case said investigators are pressing him to identify the two sergeants who have backed up his accusations — something he does not want to do for the sake of all their careers.
"He's a very decent, fine young man," said Col. Dan Zupan, who teaches the rules of war at West Point and was one of Fishback's mentors. "He doesn't have an ax to grind. He's just in search of the truth."
At Human Rights Watch, Tom Malinowski, the group's Washington director, recalled escorting Fishback, his uniform adorned with two bronze stars, to meet with staff aides on the Senate Armed Services Committee two weeks ago.
For an hour they chatted behind closed doors in the committee's hearing room in the Russell building. Malinowski said Fishback answered all their questions unflinchingly.
"He answered them just as you would imagine an officer would — very factual, very unemotional," Malinowski said.
A former soldier close to Fishback, who asked not to be identified out of respect for Fishback's own decision not to talk to the media, said Fishback "really doesn't care what happens to him."
"He wants to stay in the Army. But he also says, 'This is bigger than me. I've got to do the right thing here.' "
Fishback maintains that he witnessed detainees being stripped, deprived of sleep and exposed to the elements at the behest of Army intelligence officers, who wanted the prisoners softened up for interrogation.
To back up his claims, two as-yet-unnamed sergeants came forward, telling Human Rights Watch they saw soldiers break a prisoner's leg, kick and punch others and force others to hold large water jugs for long periods of time or stack themselves into human pyramids.
They said the practice involved numerous soldiers and lasted six months, from the fall of 2003 to spring of 2004 in the vicinity of Fallouja, a hotbed of opposition to U.S. troops.
Human Rights Watch officials said one of the sergeants had left the military and the other had been reassigned. One said he had never been trained in handling prisoners.
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"We never should have been allowed to guard people who tried to kill us," the infantry sergeant said.
Human Rights Watch said it had spoken with a third sergeant and two Army physician's assistants who can back up the claims of brutality. But they said those individuals had not given permission to release their stories.
For now, Fishback has been instructed to remain at Ft. Bragg, where he must obtain a pass for any trips off the base farther than 50 miles.
When he came to Washington to meet with the committee two weeks ago, he came with a pass. But according to Human Rights Watch, the Army learned of that session and denied his request for a pass to return to Washington.
The Army would not discuss those matters. But Paul Boyce, a spokesman, said, "The Army does not tolerate detainee abuse."
He added that it had conducted more than 400 investigations and 2,800 interviews on possible abuse since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He said 230 members of the Army had been punished.
Central to Fishback's reasoning in pursuing the abuse matter is the "Cadet Honor Code" he studied before graduating from West Point in 2001. It says, "A cadet shall not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do."
In his personal chronology, he wrote, "Bottom line: I am concerned that the Army is deliberately misleading the American people about detainee treatment within our custody."
When the prison abuse scandals at the Abu Ghraib prison erupted in April 2004, he noted that he had heard of instances around Fallouja that were "even more intense."
By June of this year, his concern had grown because it had become clear that the military was holding few soldiers accountable for Abu Ghraib beyond the half-dozen guards arrested, and that none of their superiors had been court-martialed. He asked the Army's inspector general at Ft. Bragg for an analysis of the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners.
"He listens to me and agrees to give me an IG investigation summary," Fishback wrote. "It is very incomplete and provides no information that I need."
He called the International Committee of the Red Cross for an interpretation of the Geneva Convention, and found it "much closer to my West Point education."
Then he learned of two new incidents of abuse: Someone had "interrogated" a detainee to death in Iraq and "fed a prisoner water by saturating the sand bag over the prisoner's head."
That was enough for him, he wrote. He began "obtaining documents and additional points of view from fellow officers and determining possible courses of action."
That road led him outside the Army.Monday, September 26, 2005
TILLMAN WAS FRAGGED FOR BUSHCO PR
A Cover-Up At The Highest Levels
by Max Blumenthal, Huffington Post
“The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons. This cover-up started within minutes of Pat’s death, and it started at high levels. This is not something that (lower-ranking) people in the field do.” -- Pat Tillman Sr.
Of all the symbols the right used to cultivate domestic support for the Bush administration's military escapades in Iraq and Afghanistan, that of Pat Tillman was one its most effective. If your memory is fuzzy, Tillman was a handsome, muscle-bound NFL star who passed up a multi-million dollar contract to become an Army Ranger battling Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The official Army account of Tillman's death held that he was killed while charging up a rocky incline in pursuit of a band of Qaeda fighters. When word of Tillman's killing hit stateside, the conservative propaganda factory sought to make him theirs. Ann Coulter described Tillman as “an American original -- virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be.” (Can we have that in the original German, bitte?) Though the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan were growing increasingly catastrophic, Tillman's reinvigorated public support for the administration's mission, at least momentarily.
Now, almost a year and a half later, the right's version of Tillman's killing has been shattered. The San Francisco Chronicle got its hands on 2000 pages of testimony on Tillman's death and interviewed his family and soldiers who served with him. The Chronicle's report not only strengthens the evidence that the
Pentagon deliberately covered up Tillman's death from friendly-fire to better exploit him as a PR tool, it reveals that:
--Tillman joined the Army specifically to fight Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but was sent to participate in the invasion of Iraq against his wishes. He called the invasion, "so fucking illegal."
--He was an avid reader and fan of Noam Chomsky. Tillman was scheduled to meet Chomsky upon his return from Afghanistan.
--Tillman was an independent-minded, outspoken Bush critic who planned to vote for
John Kerry.
--On April 23, 2004, a day after he was killed, Tillman's bullet-riddled body armor was burned by a soldier. That same day, all Army Ranger top commanders were informed of the suspected fratricide.
--Two days later, Tillman's uniform was burned.
--On April 30, Tillman was awarded the Silver Star for bravery. "Through the firing Tillman’s voice was heard issuing fire commands to take the fight to the enemy on the dominating high ground,” the Army stated.
--Three days later, acting Army Secretary Lee Brownlee was told of Tillman's death by fratricide.
--On May 29, once Tillman's PR value had been exhausted, the Army admitted to his family that his death was a fratricide.
--ON November 14, an officer who interrogated Rangers involved in Tillman's killing stated he thought some could have been charged with "criminal intent" and other with "gross negligence."
--Portions of the Pentagon's report on Tillman's death were deleted.
The question now is, what did Donald Rumsfeld know about Tillman's death and when did he know it? If Army Ranger commanders and the Army Secretary knew Tillman was killed in a fratricide, Rumsfeld must have known too. The fact that when Tillman first joined the Army, Rumsfeld personally commended him with a signed letter seems especially relevant now. If Rumsfeld knew the nature of Tillman's killing in April, 2004, he undoubtedly directed the cover-up. And if Rumsfeld directed the cover-up, Karl Rove was aware of it, if not actively involved in exploiting it.
Supposedly John McCain has taken up the Tillman family's case in the Senate. If he's serious, he will convene hearings on the cover-up and compel Rumsfeld to testify. Until then, the Pentagon is conducting its own probe of Tillman's death, thus ensuring a newer, more sophisticated cover-up than ever before.Monday, September 26, 2005
CIRCLING THE BOWL
Rushed constitution points Iraq to civil war: report
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The rushed drafting of Iraq's new constitution has deepened sectarian rifts and is likely to fuel the Sunni-led insurgency and hasten the country's violent break up, a leading think-tank said.
"Instead of healing the growing divisions between Iraq's three principal communities -- Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs -- a rushed constitutional process has deepened rifts and hardened feelings," the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report.
Iraq "appears to be heading toward de facto partition and full-scale civil war" said the report, unless Washington makes "a determined effort to broker a true compromise between Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs."
Iraqis are due to vote on October 15 on the draft charter that emerged earlier this month after weeks of haggling between the different parties, although Sunni Arab leaders have already expressed unhappiness with the document.
Sunnis, who held power for decades, are notably unhappy about the rigorous purging of former members of deposed leader Saddam Hussein's Baath party and about Iraq's federal future as laid down in the document.
They feel that the text "threatens their existential interests by implicitly facilitating the country's dissolution, which would leave them landlocked and bereft of resources," said the report by the Brussels-based group.
In a federal Iraq, Sunni Arabs who predominate in central and western areas are concerned that they will be deprived of oil revenue coming from fields largely in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south.
Iraqi Shiites and Kurds dominate parliament to the detriment of Sunni Arabs who largely boycotted January's elections out of fear of insurgent reprisals or disenchantment with the political process.
The failure to agree a government for months after the vote further reduced the time available for agreeing the draft constitution ahead of the August 15 deadline laid down by the US-drafted Transitional Administrative Law.
The ICG said that Sunni Arabs are also unlikely to be able to muster the two-thirds no vote in three provinces that would see the draft sent back for rewriting and new general elections held in December.
Furthermore, key passages in the controversial document "are both vague and ambiguous and so carry the seeds of future discord".
The ICG regrets that US President George W. Bush's administration "chose to sacrifice inclusiveness for the sake of an arbitrary deadline, apparently in hopes of preparing the ground for a significant military draw-down in 2006".
Amid increasing domestic calls for the US to pull troops out and with "scant evidence of progress on the ground... meeting political deadlines has become a substitute for genuine progress."
Sunni Arabs "appear to have made a good-faith effort to participate" but have been excluded from making a meaningful contribution to the draft constitution, it said.
The US must now intervene as Iraqi parties "have shown they lack the incentive, ability or political maturity to reach an acceptable compromise text".
With less than three weeks to go before the referendum, the key lies in accommodating fundamental Sunni concerns without crossing Shiite or Kurdish "red lines".
One possibility the report cites is to limit the number of governorates that can create a federal region, thereby assuaging Sunni fears of a Shiite "super-region" in the south.
Without a national consensus embodied in a permanent constitution, there is little that can halt the slide toward civil war, chaos and dissolution, said the report.
"Only a determined political intervention by the US might be capable of creating the elusive political consensus that could help prevent the country's violent break-up."