Say Anything Blog

Heavy Troop Deployments Are Called Major Risk
Readiness Is Dangerously Low, Army Chief Says

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 2, 2008; Page A04

Senior Army and Marine Corps leaders said yesterday that the increase of more than 30,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has put unsustainable levels of stress on U.S. ground forces and has put their readiness to fight other conflicts at the lowest level in years.

In a stark assessment a week before Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is to testify on the war’s progress, Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army’s vice chief of staff, said that the heavy deployments are inflicting “incredible stress” on soldiers and families and that they pose “a significant risk” to the nation’s all-volunteer military.

“When the five-brigade surge went in . . . that took all the stroke out of the shock absorbers for the United States Army,” Cody testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s readiness panel.

He said that even if five brigades are pulled out of Iraq by July, as planned, it would take some time before the Army could return to 12-month tours for soldiers. Petraeus is expected to call for a pause in further troop reductions to assess their impact on security in Iraq.

“I’ve never seen our lack of strategic depth be where it is today,” said Cody, who has been the senior Army official in charge of operations and readiness for the past six years and plans to retire this summer.

The Fighting Coke Head vs the SC Air Head

In this corner:

And backed into this corner:

DOJ Sues Wal-Mart For Not Rehiring Air Force Veteran

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

The Department of Justice filed suit again
st Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) for allegedly violating the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994.

A representative for Wal-Mart couldn’t be reached for immediate comment.

The government alleges the Bentonville, Ark., retail chain violated USERRA by failing and refusing to reinstate Air Force airman Sean Thornton to his position of cashier at a Florida outlet after he was discharged by the Air Force.

The employment act requires that individuals who leave their jobs to serve in the military be reemployed by their civilian employers in the same position had they not left to serve.

Shares of Wal-Mart fell 43 cents to $52.25 in recent after-hours trading.

-Adam O. Manzor; 201-938-5400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com

Government auditors issued a scathing review yesterday of dozens of the Pentagon’s biggest weapons systems, saying ships, aircraft and satellites are billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

The Government Accountability Office found that 95major systems have exceeded their original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion, and are delivered almost two years late on average. In addition, none of the systems that the GAO looked at had met all of the standards for best management practices during their development stages.

Auditors said the Defense Department showed few signs of improvement since the GAO began issuing its annual assessments of selected weapons systems six years ago. “It’s not getting any better by any means,” said Michael Sullivan, director of the GAO’s acquisition and sourcing team. “It’s taking longer and costing more.”

Chris Isleib, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a written statement, “We’d like to look at what GAO has said, and then at the appropriate time make an informed comment.”

The Pentagon has doubled the amount it has committed to new systems, from $790 billion in 2000 to $1.6 trillion last year, according to the 205-page GAO report. Total acquisition costs in 2007 for major defense programs increased 26 percent from first estimates. In 2000, 75 programs had cost increases totaling 6 percent. Development costs in 2007 for the systems rose 40 percent from initial projections, compared with 27 percent in 2000. Current programs are delivered 21 months late on average, five months later than in 2000.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. housing secretary will resign Monday morning under pressure after accusations of improper allocation of federal contracts, the Wall Street Journal reported in its Monday edition.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson will step down on Monday morning, the paper reported. The department announced late Sunday that Jackson will make a statement to the press on Monday morning.

Jackson has faced calls for his resignation after lawmakers have said he behaved improperly in awarding federal contracts.

The Federal Housing Administration, overseen by HUD, runs the largest government program to aid home buyers and is seen by many lawmakers as the key to a federal effort to stem foreclosures.

The balance of party identification in the American electorate now favors the Democratic Party by a decidedly larger margin than in either of the two previous presidential election cycles.

In 5,566 interviews with registered voters conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press during the first two months of 2008, 36% identify themselves as Democrats, and just 27% as Republicans.

The Democratic Party has also built a substantial edge among independent voters. Of the 37% who claim no party identification, 15% lean Democratic, 10% lean Republican, and 12% have no leaning either way.

By comparison, in 2004 about equal numbers of independents leaned toward both parties. When “leaners” are combined with partisans, however, the Democratic Party now holds a 14-point advantage among voters nationwide (51% Dem/lean-Dem to 37% Rep/lean-Rep), up from a three-point advantage four years ago.

WASHINGTON - An aide to President Bush has resigned because of an alleged misuse of grant money from U.S. Agency for International Development and his former employer, a Cuban democracy organization.

Felipe Sixto was promoted on March 1 as a special assistant to the president for intergovernmental affair and stepped forward on March 20 to reveal his alleged wrongdoing and to resign, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said on Friday.

The matter has been turned over to the Justice Department for investigation, Stanzel said. He said Bush was briefed on the case and felt that the approriate action was being taken.

How many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth and our judgment was ah not very many...and I think we got it right.

MNF-W COMMANDER’S COMMENTS

I spent the entire day inspecting the Fallujah city jail. I found the conditions there to be exactly (unbelivable over crowding, total lack of anything approaching even minimal levels of hygiene for human beings, no food, little water, no ventilation) to those described in the recent (18 February) FOX news artickle by Michael Totten entitled the “Dungeon of Fallujah”. When queried the iraqis and marines present throughout my inspection as to why these conditions existed, three conditions were universaly cited as problems in Fallujah as well as the rest of Anbar. First, there is zero support from the government for any of the jails in Anbar. No funds, food or medical support has been provided from any ministry. Second, the police that run Anbar’s jails are the same personnel responsable for investigating crimes. These jailer/investigators are undermanned and more often than not spend most of their time out begging and scavenging for food than investigating crimes. (It is unlikely the prisoners will eat today). Third, Anbar lacks trained Iraqi correctional officers (ICOS) to run the jails in Anbar. The development and employment of trained ICOS would enable the IP to focus on criminal investigation rather then jail supervision. I believe the Iraqi police are doing the best they can, and they literally begged me on humanitarian, moral and religious grounds to help them help the prisoners by somehow moving the government to action.

We need to go to general quarters on this issue right now. There are four areas that MNF-W needs immediate support with to correst these deficiencies. First, GOI must provide funfing support to provide care for Iraqi prisoners in Iraqi custody in Anbar. To state that the current system is broken would erroneously imply that there is a system in place to be broken. Most jails in Anbar have a mixed prisoner population of pre-trial prisoners and post-trial convicted prisoners. The ministry of Justice the latter. Since the Anbar jail population is mixed of interior and the ministry of Justice (MOJ). Second, Anbar needs ICO trainers to establish an ICO course in Anbar to develop and employ that capability province wide. Third, Anbar lacks a director general of MOJ for the province. Anbar needs one appointed and working in Anbar as soon as possible. Fourth, Iraqi security force funds (ISFF) must be made available to upgrade a majority of the correctional facilities within Anbar to comply with basic international standarts of care for prisoners.

One of the main goals of MNF-W is to successfully transition the IP from a security force to a professional law enforcement force. The Iraqi police will ultimately be the ones whose shoulders the burden of winning or losing the fight will be carried. To date, little attention has been paid to the Iraqi corrections system in Anbar and its current discrepancies will prevent the IP from becoming a professional law enforcement force unless immediate and significant support is provided. As I understand it the coalition has absolutely no authority to direct what goes on in these “facilities”, and when we have intervened recently in other jails with the same conditions we have been criticized for not making the Iraqis solve their own problems. The conditions in these jails are so bad that I think we need to either take a TF-134 approach and that is to do the right thing in terms of caring for the prisoners even with our own dollars, or release them.

FALLUJAH, Mar 26 (IPS) - Iraqi doctors in al-Anbar province warn of a new disease they call “Blackwater” that threatens the lives of thousands. The disease is named after Blackwater Worldwide, the U.S. mercenary company operating in Iraq.

“This disease is a severe form of malarial infection caused by the parasite plasmodium falciparum, which is considered the worst type of malarial infection,” Dr. Ali Hakki from Fallujah told IPS. “It is one of the complications of that infection, and not the ordinary picture of the disease. Because of its frequent and severe complications, such as Blackwater fever, and its resistance to treatment, P. falciparum can cause death within 24 hours.”

What Iraqis now call Blackwater fever is really a well-known medical condition, and while it has nothing to do with Blackwater Worldwide, Iraqis in al-Anbar province have decided to make the connection between the disease and the lethal U.S.-based company which has been responsible for the death of countless Iraqis.

The disease is most prevalent in Africa and Asia. The patient suffers severe intravascular haemolysis—the destruction of red blood cells leading to kidney and liver failure. It also leads to black or red urination, and hence perhaps the new name ‘Blackwater’.

The deadly disease, never before seen in Iraq on at least this scale, seems to be spreading across the country. And Iraq lacks medicines, hospitals, and doctors to lead a campaign to fight the disease.

...The spread of this condition follows the outbreak of other diseases. According to the WHO, as of Oct. 3, 2007 cholera outbreaks in Iraq had spread to nine of 18 provinces, and roughly 30,000 people had fallen ill with acute diarrhoea, with 14 deaths.

An Oxfam International report released last July showed that the humanitarian disaster in Iraq is compounded by a mass exodus of medical staff fleeing chronic violence and lawlessness. The report said the lack of doctors and nurses is breaking down a health system now on the brink of collapse.

The report said many hospitals had lost up to 80 percent of their teaching staff.

Although the final numbers are not yet in, so far registration has swelled 84,801 since the 2006 elections — that’s 11% of the 790,000 people who voted in the 2004 Democratic primary. Last week alone 50,347 people became Democratic voters, according to Pennsylvania’s State Department, bringing the state party’s total to over four million for the first time ever. Since the beginning of the year, 86,711 Republicans and Independents have switched affiliations, and in just the last three weeks 34,104 new voters registered as Democrats.

Federal Jury Convicts Nat’l Century Exec
By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS,AP
Posted: 2008-03-26 16:11:20

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A federal jury on Wednesday convicted the founder of a failed health care company of trying to bribe a witness in an upcoming $1.9 billion fraud trial.

The jury took one day to deliver its decision against Lance Poulsen, former chief executive officer of National Century Financial Enterprises, described as the nation’s largest health care financing firm before its 2002 bankruptcy.

Poulsen was accused of offering a former company executive $500,000 to give misleading testimony during Poulsen’s fraud trial scheduled for August.

The executive, Sherry Gibson, told jurors that Karl Demmler, a long time friend to her and Poulsen, told her that Poulsen “wanted to make me whole.”

Before his downfall last month, Lance Poulsen, former CEO of National Century Financial Enterprises, was flying high. He ran a lucrative health care finance firm. He hosted charity fundraisers at his waterside villa in Port Charlotte, Fla. He hobnobbed with Republican politicians, including Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and he sailed often to the Bahamas on his $2 million yacht, The Enterprise.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is asking Congress to exempt Libya from a law allowing terrorism victims to seize the U.S. assets of state sponsors of the attacks.

The law was part of a defense policy bill that President Bush signed in January.

The bill’s passage had been held up over Bush’s objections to the provision letting victims of state-sponsored terrorism sue responsible foreign governments and collect judgments by seizing their assets in the United States. Bush was concerned the provision would be applied to Iraq, so Democrats gave ground by giving the president permission to waive it for that country. He did so immediately upon signing the legislation.

Now, the administration has asked lawmakers to quickly grant Bush waiver authority for Libya.

Gordon Johndroe, Bush’s national security spokesman, said the seizing of assets provision in the law could discourage nations like Libya that have renounced the export of terrorism from now helping the United States to fight terrorism. There is potential for billions of dollars in investment by U.S. companies in Libya’s oil sector, as well as in other areas, meaning Libyan assets increasingly could wind up on American soil.

“Commercial relationships ... provide important continuing incentives for them to cooperate with us on counterterrorism,” Johndroe said. “This will deprive the U.S. of investments helpful to our economy, deny U.S. companies international business opportunities and reduce the opportunities for us to engage with these states on a wide range of issues including claims.”

...Johndroe said the Bush administration’s waiver request does not mean it is backing out on victims of terrorist attacks.

“We continue to do everything possible to bring the perpetrators of such acts to justice,” he said. “We are also committed to helping American victims of terrorism obtain fair and appropriate compensation.”

Susan Cohen of Cape May Court House, N.J., who lost her 20-year-old daughter Theodora on Pan Am 103, said she was disgusted at such talk from the White House. She said she stands to collect no money in any lawsuit, but can’t abide what she says is a move to let Libya off the hook in order to help oil companies.

WASHINGTON - When the American team arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2003 to repair the Qarmat Ali water injection plant, supervisors told them the orange, sand-like substance strewn around the looted facility was just a “mild irritant,” workers recall.

The workers got it on their hands and clothing every day while racing for 2 1/2 months to meet a deadline to get the plant, a crucial part of Iraq’s oil infrastructure, up and running.

But the chemical turned out to be sodium dichromate, a substance so dangerous that even limited exposure greatly increases the risk of cancer. Soon, many of the 22 Americans and 100-plus Iraqis began to complain of nosebleeds, ulcers, and shortness of breath. Within weeks, nearly 60 percent exhibited symptoms of exposure, according to the minutes of a meeting of project managers from KBR, the Houston-based construction company in charge of the repairs.

...But the company’s own actions have undermined its case: To avoid payroll taxes for its American employees, KBR hired the workers through two subsidiaries registered in the Cayman Islands, part of a strategy that has allowed KBR to dodge hundreds of millions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes.

That gives the workers’ lawyer, Mike Doyle of Houston, a chance to argue to an arbitration board that KBR is not an employer protected by federal law, but a third-party that can be sued.