United Nations Looks Closely at Iran's Nuclear Program

After challenging Iran’s atomic efforts with everything from diplomatic crusades to shows of military force, the Americans backed off late last year, based on a new intelligence finding that Tehran had suspended work in late 2003 on the design of nuclear arms. Now, in the waning days of President Bush’s second term, it would be difficult — politically, diplomatically and militarily— for them to try to press for a new confrontation.

But early this year, Washington also turned over a trove of its own intelligence to the atomic investigators in Vienna, who put it together with clues gathered from many foreign capitals and findings from their own long years of inquiries.

On the basis of that combination of new and old evidence, over the last few months, the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have come to worry that Iran — before suspending its work nearly five years ago — may have made real progress toward designing a deadly weapon.

Waterboarding Continues Under George Bush

George W Bush said today that he

vetoed legislation that would ban the Central Intelligence Agency from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.

"The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Mr. Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it."

Reversing Iraq's Descent Into Mayhem

Tabassum Zakaria and Matt Spetalnick write:

MANAMA (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Saturday that America's new strategy had reversed Iraq's descent into mayhem and the United States was on track to complete the withdrawal of 20,000 troops by mid-year.

After talks at a base in the Kuwaiti desert with his military commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, Bush said security gains in Iraq "are allowing some U.S. forces to return home."

He added: "Any additional reduction will be based on the recommendation of General Petraeus, and those recommendations will be based entirely on the conditions on the ground in Iraq."

Bush conceded that until last year, "our strategy simply wasn't working," with Iraq riven by sectarian violence and al Qaeda militants strengthening their grip in many areas. He said the new strategy, involving a troop buildup and a focus on counter-insurgency warfare, was turning things around.

The United States Should Have Bombed Railways Leading to Auschwitz, Says President Bush

Aron Heller of the Associated Press writes:

The issue of bombing the Nazi death camps or the rail lines leading to them has been debated for years — and the lack of action was interpreted by some as a sign of Allied indifference.

The Allies had detailed reports about Auschwitz toward the end of World War II from escaped prisoners. But they chose not to bomb the camp, the rail lines, or any of the other Nazi death camps, preferring instead to focus all resources on the broader military effort.

Some experts note only late in the war did the United States have the capability to bomb the infamous camp in occupied Poland, and also faced a moral dilemma since such an operation could kill thousands of prisoners. Even Jewish leaders at the time struggled with the issue and many concluded that loss of innocent lives under such circumstances was justifiable.

Bush twice had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of the museum, said Shalev, who guided Bush through the exhibits.

Upon viewing an aerial shot of Auschwitz, taken during the war by U.S. forces, he said Bush called the decision not to bomb it "complex." He then called over Rice to discuss President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision, clearly pondering the options before rendering an opinion of his own, Shalev told The Associated Press.

Shalev quoted Bush as asking Rice, "Why didn't Roosevelt bomb it?" He said Rice and Bush discussed the matter further and then the president delivered his verdict.

"We should have bombed it," Shalev, speaking in Hebrew, quoted Bush as saying.

Mortgage Interest Rate Freeze

WASHINGTON - Hundreds of thousands of strapped homeowners could get some relief from a plan negotiated by the Bush administration to freeze interest rates on subprime mortgages that are scheduled to rise in the coming months.

“There is no perfect solution,” President Bush said Thursday as he announced an agreement hammered out with the mortgage industry. “The homeowners deserve our help. The steps I’ve outlined today are a sensible response to a serious challenge.”

Bush has been accused of moving too slowly to address a crisis that has spread to the broader financial market. But he also was careful not to sound as if he were imposing a government solution and violating his free-market principles. He billed his plan as a voluntary, private-sector arrangement that involves no government money.

Warning Sign: George W Bush on Iran

MSNBC reports:

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday that the international community should continue to pressure Iran on its nuclear programs, saying Tehran remains dangerous despite a new intelligence report finding it halted its development of a nuclear bomb.

"I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program," Bush said. "The reason why it's a warning signal is they could restart it."

Iraq is Your Fault

Playing Number Games: The War in Iraq

A post on CNN's anti-war agenda by Bob Parks at Canada Free Press...

But think about it. Listening to the major networks and print pubs war coverage is like listening to a football game...

...In war, the traditional way of gauging who is winning or not is, unfortunately, a count of battlefield casualties. It seems logical, the last man standing wins. But as I’ve always had problems with the media and their portrayal of things in the Middle East, I asked one simple question: how many of the enemy have we killed?

We have everyone from activists to actors to congressmen and women to pundits all telling us how many of our servicemen and women have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. People keep score in blogs and even on the sides of their homes, yet we never hear the one number that may put at ease, for some, the sacrifice made by our sons and daughters.

How many of the enemy have we killed? A simple question.

The beauty of being an online columnist is that when you throw a question out there, sometimes someone who knows something about the topic contacts you and gives you the answer, which I’m happy to pass on to you.

Larry Schweikart, Professor of History at the University of Dayton sent me the following:

"Last August, President Bush invited me and a few other military historians to spend an hour with him in the Oval Office. When I brought up this “enemy dead” issue, he shook his head and said, “I’m afraid since Vietnam and the ‘body counts’ we really can’t even use this as a measuring stick [as far as the public was concerned].” It was a sad commentary on how out of whack things got--especially if you think (as I do) that not all Muslims are terrorists. That means there are a finite number, and we have to be getting pretty close to the bottom of the barrel.

Since then, I’ve updated the numbers with refinements and calculate that a low estimate of 30,000 terrorists have been killed since 9/11, and an upperbound number of 60,000. On top of that, between 120 and 240,000 terrorists have been wounded. This is where it gets tricky. Likely because their medicine isn’t as good as ours, they have a higher death rate among wounded, which probably means that instead of 1 out of 8 dying of wounds, it’s more like 3 out of 8, and that number is in my first set of stats. In addition, we have captured close to 50,000 terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11, and since the beginning of hostilities in Iraq, using traditional desertion rates, I figure at least another 10,000 jihadists have put away the old IED and gone home.

So, a low estimate is that we have removed from the order of battle about 210,000 on the low end to 360,000 on the high end. This is an entire generation of jihadists, and will, if nothing else, significantly feminize Muslim society."

The Truth About Torture? Albert Mohler

Christian ethics and torture...an essay by Albert Mohler, of which the following is an excerpt:

McCain wants a categorical ban, but accepts that exceptions may, under extreme situations, be made. Krauthammer wants to define the exceptions so that a policy may be more coherent and, in his view, honest. Others, such as Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, suggest that specific processes be put into place that would allow for the authorization of such techniques of coercion, going so far as to suggest something like a "warrant" for torture "to be required as a precondition to the infliction of any type of torture under any circumstances. "

This appears to be neither practical nor prudent, for the circumstances in which such a use of coercion might be conceived would often not allow time for such a warrant to be issued. The War on Terror is not fought on convenient terms. Furthermore, institutionalizing torture under such a procedure would almost surely lead to a continual renegotiation of the rules and constant flexing of the definitions.

We are simply not capable, I would argue, of constructing a set of principles and rules for torture that could adequately envision the real-life scenarios under which the pressure and temptation to use extreme coercion would be seriously contemplated.

Instead, I would suggest that Senator McCain is correct in arguing that a categorical ban should be adopted as state policy for the U.S., its military, and its agents. At the same time, I would admit that such a policy, like others, has limitations that, under extreme circumstances, may be transcended by other moral claims. The key point is this� at all times and in all cases the use of torture is understood to be morally suspect in the extreme, and generally unjustified.

My humble, oh so humble, thoughts on torture: As for waterboarding, this is a simulation of drowning as I understand it. The person only feels like he or she is drowning... A matter of degree, in other words.

Slapping is not punching. So is a slap not an act of torture? Does it not come down to the perception of the person being "tortured?" Each individual has his or her own strengths and weaknesses... for one person, a slap across the face may be so humiliating that it could be defined as torture for that individual. For another, it would take a broken rib.

The intention is also of importance: Is the intent to harm the person? Can any valuable information be obtained via torture? Evidence that I have read most recently indicates that torture is highly ineffective. Therefore, the intent must be to humiliate, harm, destroy that person.

In which case, torture is NEVER justified...

Draper's "DEAD CERTAIN"

A new biography of our sitting president, George W. Bush. This week's THE ECONOMIST states that Draper comes to a non-judgmental conclusion that Bush's virtues are also his vices: he is quick to act, highly emotional, and determined with a strong sense of purpose. These attributes can appear like stupidity, recklessness, and self-righteousness.