GWOT Media Summary Mar 14

[RAMESES the Great]

U.S. Joint Forces Command
GWOT Media Summary
Operations Iraqi Freedom/Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle
Current as of March 14, 2008

 New Developments
 Kidnapped Iraqi Archbishop Is Dead. The body of a Chaldean Catholic archbishop who was kidnapped in the northern city of Mosul last month as he drove home after afternoon Mass was discovered Thursday buried in a southeastern area of the city. The death of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul, evoked expressions of grief and anger from the Vatican and world leaders, including Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani. Officials of the Chaldean Church in Iraq said they had received a call telling them where the body was buried. The cause of death was not clear. An official of the morgue in Mosul said the archbishop, who was 65 and had health problems, including high blood pressure and diabetes, might have died of natural causes. The discovery of the archbishop’s body came on a day of continuing violence across Iraq. (New York Times – see attached)
 Pakistani, Afghan Civilians Caught In Deadly Attacks. U.S. forces on Thursday acknowledged carrying out a cross-border missile strike that reportedly killed four civilians in Pakistan, and six Afghan civilians were killed by a suicide bomber targeting American troops. The civilian deaths on both sides of the border came days before a new Pakistani government is to be sworn in, one that may prove a less pliant ally in the U.S.-led fight against Islamic militants than President Pervez Musharraf has been. Pakistan sharply protested the cross-border strike, which it said killed four civilians early Wednesday in the tribal area of North Waziristan. A U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan said the assault, which was carried out with precision-guided munitions, had been aimed at Taliban militants. (Los Angeles Times – see attached)
 Canada Votes To Extend Afghan Mission. Parliament voted Thursday to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan to 2011, provided NATO supplies more troops and equipment to back up its forces in the volatile south. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has been under growing pressure to withdraw Canada's 2,500 troops as the death toll has mounted, now at 80 Canadian soldiers and a diplomat. The mission was set to expire in February 2009. But the minority Conservative government and opposition Liberals agreed last month to vote together on the motion, which passed 198-77. Liberals backed the extension after Harper promised the mission would increase its focus on training and reconstruction. Conservatives had declared the motion a confidence vote, which would have triggered early elections if it failed. (The Guardian/AP)

 Military Coverage
 Petraeus: Iraqi Leaders Not Making 'Sufficient Progress'. Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday. Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services. The general's comments appeared to be his sternest to date on Iraqis' failure to achieve political reconciliation. In February, following the passage of laws on the budget, provincial elections and an amnesty for certain detainees, Petraeus was more encouraging. (Washington Post – see attached)

 Homeland Security
 House Goes Behind Closed Doors To Debate Surveillance Bill. The House held a closed session Thursday for the first time in 25 years to discuss a hotly contested surveillance bill. Republicans requested privacy for what they termed "an honest debate" on the new Democratic eavesdropping measure that is opposed by the White House and most Republicans in Congress. Lawmakers were forbidden to disclose what was said during the hour-long session. The extent to which minds were changed, if at all, should be more clear Friday, when the House was expected to openly debate and then vote on the bill. Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas said she didn't believe anyone changed positions but that the session was useful because no one would be able to complain on Friday that their views had not been heard. (International Herald Tribune/AP – see attached)
 U.S. Holds Largest Ever Simulated Cyber-Attack Exercise. U.S. officials said Thursday that "real and growing" threats to U.S. computer and telecommunications networks were behind the holding of the largest-ever cyber-security exercises this week. Computer security experts from five countries, more than 40 private sector companies, and numerous government and state agencies are spending a week fielding simulated "real-world," on-line attacks on the computer systems of government bodies, corporations, transportation and other key industries. Robert Jamison, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate, said the Cyber Storm II exercise sought to foster personal links between key officials in business and government. (Agence France Presse)

 World Developments
 Terror Suspect Eludes Posse Of 4 Million. The big mistake, officials in Singapore say, was letting the terrorist suspect make a trip to the bathroom. Mas Selamat bin Kastari, alleged by the government to be the leader of a terrorist group in Singapore, escaped from a high-security prison two weeks ago while taking a bathroom break, in a major embarrassment for this efficient, tightly battened city-state. In a furious response, the government put the entire country on alert, setting up checkpoints, sealing its borders, patrolling its parks and its shores, even urging people to keep an eye on their bicycles in case the wanted man decided to pedal to freedom. With each new empty-handed day the embarrassment deepens as Singapore confronts its Tora Bora moment, its most-wanted terrorist suspect melting into the urban terrain, as Osama bin Laden evaded American troops in Afghanistan. (New York Times – see attached)
 al-Qaida Sets Deadline For Held Tourists. Al-Qaida's branch for North Africa on Thursday set a three-day deadline to meet conditions for the release of two Austrian tourists it claimed to have kidnapped in Tunisia last month. In a statement posted on the Internet _ which included six photographs purportedly showing Austrians Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber _ al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa said it would free the pair if all of the group's members were released from jails in Tunisia and Algeria. The posting gave Austrian authorities three days, starting midnight Thursday, to comply. The statement, the authenticity of which could not be independently verified although it was posted on a Web site linked to the group, also called on Western tourists to avoid visiting the Maghreb region in northern Africa. The woman in the photographs, said to be Kloiber, was shown wearing a headscarf and her face was obscured. (FOX News/AP)
 North Korea, U.S. Fail To Reach Accord On Nuclear Declaration. Nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea remain deadlocked after U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill failed to persuade the communist nation to disclose its atomic program. ``We did not reach an agreement that will allow us to move forward,'' Hill told reporters in Geneva late yesterday after about eight hours of talks with his North Korean counterpart Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan. ``There is no question that we need to move faster.'' Hill said he and Kim hadn't scheduled further talks and must report back to their governments. International negotiations, also involving South Korea, Russia, China and Japan, have been stalled since Kim Jong Il's regime missed a Dec. 31 deadline to provide a complete and accurate declaration of its atomic programs and materials. North Korea is demanding it be taken off the U.S. State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism and has accused members of the six-party forum of failing to honor a pledge to deliver heavy fuel oil, or other economic aid. (Bloomberg)
 Islamic Jihad Rockets Hit Israel After West Bank Raid. Islamic Jihad fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday after Israel killed five militants in the occupied West Bank, in renewed violence that threatened prospects for an Egyptian-brokered truce. No one was injured by the salvo against the border town of Sderot, the first such attack by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant faction, since March 5. Israel, which had not struck in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in a week, said it carried out two air strikes against rocket launchers in the northern Gaza Strip. No one was hurt. The Israeli army said militants fired at least 22 rockets on Thursday. Islamic Jihad had vowed revenge after Israeli troops killed four of its members in the West Bank on Wednesday. The fifth man belonged to al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah. (Reuters)
 Sudan And Chad sign New Peace Deal. The presidents of Sudan and Chad Thursday signed a peace deal aimed at preventing armed groups operating along their shared borders from destabilizing the region. The deal, signed by Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Chad's Idriss Deby, commits both nations to implement past accords that have so far failed to help end violence in the area. If successful, the deal would be a small step toward ending violence in Sudan's Darfur region. Under the agreement, the countries will form a monitoring group made up of foreign ministers from African countries, which would meet monthly to ensure that the deal is implemented. Earlier Thursday, Chad accused Sudan of backing a new rebel advance. According to a Chad government statement, Sudan launched "several heavily armed columns" against Chad a day earlier. (Boston Globe/AP)

 Public Opinion
 Americans On Iraq: Should The U.S. Stay Or Go? Americans are as divided today as they have been since last September about the United States' troop presence in Iraq: 41% favor setting a timetable for gradually pulling out of Iraq while 35% want to maintain troops there until the situation improves. Only 18% of Americans favor an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops. Looking at the same data differently, 60% of Americans want the United States to set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq rather than maintain an indefinite military commitment. But there is no national consensus on how soon the United States should start pulling out: 18% of Americans favor immediate withdrawal on a timetable, 41% favor gradual withdrawal on a timetable, and 35% favor no withdrawal. (Gallup)

* AP = Associated Press UPI = United Press International KR = Knight Ridder

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Kidnapped Iraqi Archbishop Is Dead
New York Times
March 14, 2008

The body of a Chaldean Catholic archbishop who was kidnapped in the northern city of Mosul last month as he drove home after afternoon Mass was discovered Thursday buried in a southeastern area of the city. The death of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Mosul, evoked expressions of grief and anger from the Vatican and world leaders, including Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani. Officials of the Chaldean Church in Iraq said they had received a call telling them where the body was buried. The cause of death was not clear. An official of the morgue in Mosul said the archbishop, who was 65 and had health problems, including high blood pressure and diabetes, might have died of natural causes.
Church officials said Thursday, however, that Archbishop Rahho was shot in the leg when he was abducted on Feb. 29. Gunmen sprayed his car with bullets, killed two bodyguards and shoved the archbishop into the trunk of a car, the church officials said. In the darkness, he managed to pull out his cellphone and call the church, telling officials not to pay a ransom for his release, they said. “He believed that this money would not be paid for good works and would be used for killing and more evil actions,” the officials said. The archbishop’s church is known in Mosul as Safina, or The Ship, but parishioners called it the Holy Spirit Church. In Baghdad, Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, the patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq, said he was too grief-stricken to talk about the archbishop’s death. But he said that the morgue had released the archbishop’s body to his relatives and that a funeral would be held Friday near Mosul.

In the last few years, Mosul has been a difficult place for Christians. The archbishop’s kidnapping followed a series of attacks in January on Christian churches. Last June, a priest and three companions were shot and killed in the archbishop’s church. In January 2005, Archbishop George Yasilious, of another church in Mosul, was kidnapped and later released. In October 2006, an Orthodox priest, Boulos Iskander, was beheaded after he was kidnapped and attempts to ransom him failed. The number of Chaldeans in Iraq has dropped by at least a million since the end of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, though the Chaldeans are still the largest Christian group in the country. Priests have estimated that fewer than 500,000 remain in Iraq. The Chaldean Church is an Eastern Rite church affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church but retaining its own customs and rites.

Mr. Talabani sent condolences to the pope and to Cardinal Delly, saying he learned of the archbishop’s death “with a heart filled with sadness.” He added, “The noble Iraqi Christians will keep working with their brothers from all the sects to end sectarianism and to build brotherhood and peace.” Yonadam Kanna, a Christian member of Iraq’s Parliament, said that Archbishop Rahho had called for unity in Iraq and had stood up against sectarian violence. “This man was a victim of his opinions,” Mr. Kanna said. Pope Benedict XVI, in a letter to Iraqi church leaders, called the kidnapping “an act of inhumane violence that offends the dignity of human beings and gravely damages the cause of fraternal coexistence among the blessed people of Iraq.” The pope’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said, “Unfortunately, the most absurd and unwarranted violence keeps tormenting the Iraqi population, in particular the small Christian community, which the pope and all of us are particularly close to.”

The discovery of the archbishop’s body came on a day of continuing violence across Iraq. In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded on a crowded shopping street just across the Tigris from the heavily protected Green Zone, killing nine people and wounding 48 others, the Interior Ministry said. Witnesses to the bombing said that many of the victims were street vendors who sold belts and tea. Ali Falih, 22, who owns a shoe store, said a Toyota sedan parked in front of his shop at about 2 p.m., and two men got out. “I told them they are not allowed to park here,” he said, “but they insisted that they were going to buy something and come back quickly.” Mr. Falih said he ran after the men but was thrown to the ground by the car’s explosion. “I got up and saw the street vendors all on the ground and bleeding severely,” he said. “Some of them were already dead, because I saw an arm here, half a body there. My brothers were wounded, but thank God they were inside the shop.” The blast ripped apart the fronts of 12 stores and sent broken glass and pieces of vendors’ carts flying. Five cars were engulfed in flames.

Abbod Habeeb, 45, the owner of a tailor shop, said, “We who work here demanded that the security forces block the alleys, but they didn’t, because we are poor people who just want to live, and not officials or political party members.” Earlier in the day, Qassim Abdul-Hussein al-Iqabi, 35, a reporter and journalism student, was shot to death as he drove to work through the Karada neighborhood in Baghdad. He was a reporter for The Citizen, an Arabic-language newspaper here. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 127 journalists and 50 technical and other media workers have been killed in Iraq since the American invasion in 2003. In Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, the police reported that a suicide bomber driving an explosives-laden minibus killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded 11 others in a blast about 35 miles south of the city.

In southern Iraq, family members who had disputed the American military’s account of the deaths of at least 16 bus passengers traveling from Basra to Najaf on Tuesday, said Thursday that they would await the results of a police investigation, a member of the provincial council in Basra reported. The American military has said that a bomb of the type called an explosively formed penetrator detonated as a convoy of American soldiers passed the bus, going in the opposite direction. Relatives of the bus passengers have said the soldiers then fired at the bus. Reuters reported Thursday that television images of the bus showed shrapnel marks and blown-out windows but no other damage. The news agency quoted the bus driver as saying that the blast punched a hole in the bus and left no crater in the ground, suggesting the use of an explosively formed penetrator. At least one gesture of peace tempered the day of bloodshed. Addressing recent fighting between the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia and Iraqi security forces in Kut, a close aide to Mr. Sadr called on the militia to respect the cease-fire put in place last year. “What we say here is that the Sadr cease-fire is still valid and we stressed the inviolability of Iraqi blood in all its sects and ethnicities,” said the aide, Dr. Liwa Smeism.

Pakistani, Afghan Civilians Caught In Deadly Attacks
Los Angeles Times
March 14, 2008

U.S. forces on Thursday acknowledged carrying out a cross-border missile strike that reportedly killed four civilians in Pakistan, and six Afghan civilians were killed by a suicide bomber targeting American troops. The civilian deaths on both sides of the border came days before a new Pakistani government is to be sworn in, one that may prove a less pliant ally in the U.S.-led fight against Islamic militants than President Pervez Musharraf has been. Pakistan sharply protested the cross-border strike, which it said killed four civilians early Wednesday in the tribal area of North Waziristan. A U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan said the assault, which was carried out with precision-guided munitions, had been aimed at Taliban militants.

The spokesman, Maj. Chris Belcher, said Pakistani authorities had been informed of the strike after the fact. The target was a compound about a mile inside Pakistan where senior aides to Siraj Haqqani, a prominent Taliban commander, were believed to be sheltering. Fighters often slip back and forth across the rugged, unmarked frontier, and Pakistan's tribal areas have become a haven for militant groups. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led coalition in Afghanistan said this week that it considered Haqqani the most dangerous Taliban commander in the Afghanistan war. He is blamed for orchestrating scores of suicide bombings and other attacks, including one last week that killed two NATO soldiers and injured more than a dozen Afghan civilians.

Thursday's attack in Kabul, near the international airport, was aimed at a two-vehicle U.S. military convoy. In addition to at least six civilians killed, more than a dozen were wounded. Western news agencies reported that the Taliban had claimed responsibility. Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the bombing a cowardly attack, one of many he said was meant to harm innocent civilians. However, public anger over such attacks by militants often rebounds against Karzai's government and the presence of about 50,000 foreign troops. Fighting between insurgents and NATO-led forces has mainly been concentrated in the country's south and east. Afghan officials said Thursday that at least 41 militants had been killed by U.S. and Afghan forces in clashes a day earlier in the southwestern province of Nimruz.

The U.S. strike in Pakistan highlighted a highly sensitive issue in the two nations' relations. Many Pakistanis consider such actions a violation of national sovereignty, but Musharraf's government is thought to have given tacit assent for some missile strikes aimed at senior Taliban and Al Qaeda figures, usually carried out with unmanned drones. One such strike in North Waziristan at the end of January killed Abu Laith al Libi, a senior associate of Osama bin Laden. But strikes that kill civilians instead of militants invariably spark a public outcry. Belcher, the military spokesman, said the latest one had been carried out on the basis of "reliable intelligence" placing Haqqani associates in the walled compound that was hit. Pakistan's chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said the dead were two women and two children. Pakistan's two main opposition parties, which won last month's elections and are forming a coalition government, have said the strategy against Islamic militants needs retooling, perhaps to include talks with the insurgents.

Petraeus: Iraqi Leaders Not Making 'Sufficient Progress'
Washington Post
March 14, 2008

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday. Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services. The general's comments appeared to be his sternest to date on Iraqis' failure to achieve political reconciliation. In February, following the passage of laws on the budget, provincial elections and an amnesty for certain detainees, Petraeus was more encouraging. "The passage of the three laws today showed that the Iraqi leaders are now taking advantage of the opportunity that coalition and Iraqi troopers fought so hard to provide," he said at the time.

Petraeus came back to Iraq a year ago to implement a counterinsurgency strategy, backed up by a temporary increase of about 30,000 U.S. troops, intended to reduce violence so Iraqi leaders could pass laws and take other measures to ease the sectarian and political differences that threaten to break the country apart. The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has won passage of some legislation that aids the cause of reconciliation, drawing praise from President Bush and his supporters. But the Iraqi government also has deferred action on some of its most important legislative goals, including laws governing the exploitation of Iraq's oil resources, that the Bush administration had identified as necessary benchmarks of progress toward reconciliation. Many Iraqi parliament members and other officials acknowledge that the country's political system is often paralyzed by sectarian divisions, but they also say that American expectations are driven by considerations in Washington and do not reflect the complexity of Iraq's problems.

In what appeared to be a foreshadowing of his congressional testimony, which his aides said he would not discuss explicitly, Petraeus insisted that Iraqi leaders still have an opportunity to act. "We're going to fight like the dickens" to maintain the gains in security and "where we can to try and build on it," he said. While violence has declined dramatically since late 2006, when thousands of Iraqis were being killed each month, U.S. military data show that attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians have leveled off or risen slightly in the early part of 2008. "I don't see an enormous uptick projected right now," Petraeus said, speaking in his windowless office in the U.S. Embassy, which is housed in Saddam Hussein's former Republican Palace. "What you have seen is some sensational attacks, there's no question about that."

Petraeus said several factors may account for the recent violence, including increased U.S. and Iraqi operations against insurgents in the northern city of Mosul -- which has lately become one of Iraq's most dangerous -- and insurgent efforts to reestablish some of their havens in Baghdad. And Petraeus said U.S. commanders could not discount the possibility that insurgents "know the April testimony is coming up." The additional forces sent to Iraq last year have begun to depart and will be gone by midsummer, leaving in place a baseline U.S. presence of about 130,000 troops. Petraeus said it would increasingly fall to Iraqi security forces and neighborhood patrols funded by the United States to help keep violence down. Petraeus also said the United States would temporarily freeze further reductions in its troop presence to allow for a "period of consolidation and evaluation after reducing our ground combat forces by over a quarter." He said he would discuss the length and timing of what the military terms an "operational pause" during his testimony.

Petraeus credited both the mainly Sunni neighborhood patrols known as the Awakening and a cease-fire called by Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr with helping to bring down violence. The Awakening fighters include former insurgents who say they have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq, a largely homegrown Sunni group that Petraeus said is in communication with al-Qaeda leaders abroad. The United States is now paying 88,000 members of the Awakening $300 a month to take part in the neighborhood patrols. Sadr issued his cease-fire in August 2007 and renewed it last month in an attempt to increase his control over his Mahdi Army militia and expel renegade fighters. U.S. military commanders who once saw Sadr and his forces as enemies now speak deferentially of the cleric, who has maintained his insistence that the U.S. occupation must end.

In the interview, Petraeus conceded that some elements of both the Awakening movement and the Mahdi Army may be standing down in order to prepare for the day when the U.S. presence is diminished. "Some of them may be keeping their powder dry," Petraeus said of Mahdi Army members. "Obviously you would expect some of that to happen. "The issue is, again," he continued, "how to sort of prolong what has been achieved, in just a host of different neighborhoods, villages, towns and cities, so that the Iraqi structures can continue to gather strength." Sunni fighters in the western province of Anbar who have joined the Awakening "are waiting for the next opportunity," not the next war, Petraeus asserted. "What they want to do is get more closely linked with Baghdad so they can continue to benefit from the enormous oil revenue wealth which is pouring into this country." Petraeus said he and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker had "repeatedly noted that it's crucial that the Iraqis exploit the opportunities that we and our Iraqi counterparts have fought so hard to provide them."

House Goes Behind Closed Doors To Debate Surveillance Bill
International Herald Tribune/AP
March 13, 2008

The House held a closed session Thursday for the first time in 25 years to discuss a hotly contested surveillance bill. Republicans requested privacy for what they termed "an honest debate" on the new Democratic eavesdropping measure that is opposed by the White House and most Republicans in Congress. Lawmakers were forbidden to disclose what was said during the hour-long session. The extent to which minds were changed, if at all, should be more clear Friday, when the House was expected to openly debate and then vote on the bill. Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas said she didn't believe anyone changed positions but that the session was useful because no one would be able to complain on Friday that their views had not been heard. "We couldn't have gone more of an extra mile to make sure we're doing the best for national security," she told The Associated Press.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview that he read aloud the titles — but not details — of intelligence reports "that shows the nature of the global threat and how dynamic the situation is, and how fluid." Hoekstra said the House discussed the procedures intelligence agencies use to protect the identities of innocent Americans whose calls and e-mails are incidentally intercepted in wiretaps. Hoekstra said three Democrats spoke as did eight or nine Republicans. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said "there was nothing new, nothing that wasn't public, nothing that can't and shouldn't be debated on the floor tomorrow in open session." House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said he heard nothing new that would change his mind about the bill. "Tomorrow, I will urge members on both sides of the aisle to vote for this legislation," Hoyer said.

The last such session in the House was in 1983 on U.S. support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua. Only five closed sessions have taken place in the House since 1825. Four members declined to sign the confidentiality oath required to participate in the closed session, House staff members said. Many Democrats initially objected, calling it a political ploy by Republicans to delay a vote on the bill. House leaders did in fact push off the scheduled vote until Friday, just before taking a two-week recess. If it passes, the bill would need Senate approval before going to the president. President Bush has vowed to veto it, saying it would undermine the nation's security. Bush opposes it in part because it doesn't provide full, retroactive legal protection to telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on their customers without court permission after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

About 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecommunications companies by people and organizations alleging they violated wiretapping and privacy laws. The lawsuits have been combined and are pending before a single federal judge in California. The Democrats' measure would encourage the judge to review in private the secret government documents underpinning the program in order to decide whether the companies acted lawfully. If they did, the lawsuits would be dismissed. The administration has prevented those documents from being revealed, even to a judge, by invoking the state secrets privilege. That puts the companies in a bind because they cannot use the documents to defend themselves in court. It wasn't clear what information would be presented in the closed session. Just a fraction of Congress has been allowed to read secret documents underpinning the surveillance program, and those who have arrived at varying conclusions.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, after seeing classified material, said the companies acted on the good-faith belief that the wiretaps they allowed were lawful. Democrats on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees were unconvinced after being presented with the same material. The surveillance law is intended to help in the pursuit of suspected terrorists by making it easier to eavesdrop on foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the United States. A temporary law expired Feb. 16 before Congress was able to produce a replacement bill. Bush opposed an extension of the temporary law as a tactic to pressure Congress into accepting the Senate version of the surveillance legislation. The Senate's bill provides retroactive legal immunity for the telecommunications companies. Bush said lawsuits against telecom companies would lead to the disclosure of state secrets. Further, he said lawsuits would undermine the willingness of the private sector to cooperate with the government in trying to track down terrorists.

Hoekstra said intelligence was already being lost. "Each and every day our capabilities are eroding," he said. Directing his message at the House, Bush said, "They should not leave for their Easter recess without getting the Senate bill to my desk." Bush predicted the Senate would not pass the House version of the bill, and said even if it did, he would veto it. At least one Senate Republican said the lawsuits should go forward to determine whether the wiretapping program was illegal. But Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter wants to substitute the government for the phone companies as the defendant in the court cases. "The president can't have a blank check," Specter said in an interview. "If you close down the courts, there's no check and balance." He added: "Wiretaps are important for national security. There's no doubt about that. Al-Qaida and terrorism continue to be a major threat to this country. It is my hope that the president will not find it necessary to veto the bill, that we'll be able to work it out."

Terror Suspect Eludes Posse Of 4 Million
New York Times
March 14, 2008

The big mistake, officials in Singapore say, was letting the terrorist suspect make a trip to the bathroom. Mas Selamat bin Kastari, alleged by the government to be the leader of a terrorist group in Singapore, escaped from a high-security prison two weeks ago while taking a bathroom break, in a major embarrassment for this efficient, tightly battened city-state. In a furious response, the government put the entire country on alert, setting up checkpoints, sealing its borders, patrolling its parks and its shores, even urging people to keep an eye on their bicycles in case the wanted man decided to pedal to freedom. With each new empty-handed day the embarrassment deepens as Singapore confronts its Tora Bora moment, its most-wanted terrorist suspect melting into the urban terrain, as Osama bin Laden evaded American troops in Afghanistan.

For some people here, this noisy, flailing search — even more than the escape itself — has cast Singapore in an unfamiliar light of haplessness. “We had all bought into the image of a well-organized government machinery,” wrote Alex Au, author of a popular political Web site called Yawning Bread. “Suddenly, our picture of Singapore as a kind of Big Brother state is, well, full of holes.” All around the city, police officers are on patrol and their checkpoints have delayed traffic for as much as 15 hours in some places, according to newspaper reports. Security officers on boats and Jet Skis are patrolling the coastline and the police have removed keys from the ignitions of unattended motor boats. In what one newspaper called “extensive land, sea and air searches,” military officers in jungle fatigues and Nepalese Gurkha paramilitary forces have scoured the city for the runaway inmate.

Wanted posters are everywhere, mug shots have been transmitted to millions of cellphones and the entire nation of four million people has been deputized to look out for a round-faced man who is 5-foot-2, weighs 139 pounds and walks — or at least runs — with a limp. Newspapers here say it is the biggest manhunt in Singapore’s history. Mr. Mas Selamat, 47, who is said to be the chief of operations in Singapore for the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network, is accused by the government of being the coordinator of a failed plot to bomb the United States Embassy and several other targets in Singapore. Officials also say he planned to crash an airplane into Singapore’s airport. He had been in detention here since 2006 under the Internal Security Act, which allows the government to hold suspects without trial, and his escape shocked terrorism experts in the region.

“Everyone thought Singapore had the tightest security system of anyone around,” said Sidney Jones, a leading terrorism expert for the International Crisis Group. As a nation, Singapore is as lean and mean and flexible as the rapid-response military the Pentagon dreams of, and it reacted with impressive speed and agility to recent Asian outbreaks of bird flu and SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome. But for the moment it seems to have met its match in Mr. Mas Selamat. His disappearance challenges the government’s basic promise to its citizens that it will keep them safe and comfortable. The authorities have released little information about his escape on Feb. 27, but they say that he acted alone and on the spur of the moment and that he is probably still in Singapore.

The official account is that the prisoner asked to go to the bathroom while waiting for family members to visit, then simply disappeared from the Whitley Road Detention Center. If this is true, said Lee Kin Mun, a leading political blogger who calls himself Mr. Brown, the government should “take a leaf from school exams, where security seems to be tighter” and where students must be escorted to the bathroom. The country’s founder and former prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, boiled the whole debacle down to one word: complacency. He used the episode to strike again with his frequent warning that Singaporeans must work hard to protect the modern but fragile country he created from a social or economic explosion. “It shows that it is a fallacy, it is stupid, to believe we are infallible,” he said. “We are not infallible. One mistake and we’ve got a big explosive in our midst. So let’s not take this lightly. I think it’s a very severe lesson on complacency.”

His son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said, “It is definitely a setback, and it should never have happened.” And then, echoing his father: “It’s the danger of complacency, of thinking that everything is all right.” In Singapore, words like that amount to marching orders, and government agencies seem to be rushing to demonstrate that whatever else they are, they are anything but complacent. Wong Hong Kuan, the assistant police commissioner, is at the center of the storm, commanding both his security forces and the public response. “He knows machines, so keep an eye on your car,” said the newspaper Today, reporting on a recent briefing by Mr. Wong. “Anyone who discovers their vehicles, including motorcycles and bicycles, missing, should make a police report immediately.” “Err on the side of caution,” the paper quoted Mr. Wong as saying. “Every second counts.”

The public has swung into action, as it has with previous nationwide campaigns — to have fewer children, to have more children, to keep toilets clean, not to throw things off balconies, to speak good English, to smile and to commit “spontaneous acts of kindness.” More than a thousand people have telephoned the police with tips. Concerned citizens are stopping people on the street who fit the fugitive’s description. This is not a good place to be a man with a limp. “Mas Selamat” seems to be everywhere. He has been seen running into a park wearing only a pair of shorts monogrammed with the initials of the detention center. He has been spotted at an outdoor food stall, “but it turned out to be the man is Chinese,” according to a witness quoted in the news media. Someone followed his footprints up a flight of stairs to a rooftop, where the footprints disappeared. Someone else saw him running down a highway toward a causeway linking Singapore to Malaysia.

A comedian, Ahmad Stokin, 51, said he had been stopped eight times, but did not seem to find it funny. He said he might look a bit like the picture on the wanted posters and he may have a limp, but it is in his right leg, not his left. Two weeks into the search, these fruitless sightings are about all the papers have to report about the biggest news story of the day. The top headline on Thursday about the search in the country’s main newspaper, The Straits Times, read: “I Think I Saw Mas Selamat.” An unidentified woman, the paper reported, had just recalled seeing someone who fit the description two weeks ago near the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped. Pondering this report, the newspaper left its readers with what is now a pointless question. “Was Fugitive Limping Along This Road?” it asked in a headline, and displayed a photo of an empty, rain-slick road where the witness had been standing.