A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

[snip]

National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue, and are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies.

A French regional newspaper quoted a French secret service report on Saturday as saying that Saudi Arabia is convinced that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

L’Est Republicain printed what it said was a copy of the report dated Sept. 21 and said it was shown to President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and France’s interior and defense ministers on the same day.

“According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead,” the document said.

“The information gathered by the Saudis indicates that the head of al-Qaida was a victim while he was in Pakistan on Aug. 23, 2006, of a very serious case of typhoid which led to a partial paralysis of his internal organs.”

The report, which was stamped with a “confidential defense” label and the initials of the French secret service, said Saudi Arabia first heard the information on Sept. 4 and that it was waiting for more details before making an official announcement.

Officials contacted by Reuters in Chirac’s and Villepin’s offices had no immediate comment.

A senior official in Pakistan’s interior ministry said: “We have no information about Osama’s death.”

According to two conservative websites, White House political strategist Karl Rove has been promising GOP insiders that there will be an "October surprise" before the midterm elections.

"In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an 'October surprise' to help win the November congressional elections," reports Ronald Kessler for Newsmax.

"President Bush's political strategist is also saying that the final two weeks before the elections will see a blitz of advertising, and the Republican National Committee is deploying an army of volunteers to key locations to help the grass-roots effort and monitor the election," the article continues. "The RNC is offering to fly in volunteers and cover their expenses."

A few weeks ago, another conservative publication, The American Spectator, reported that White House staffers had "been talking up the possibilities of an 'October Surprise' or two leading into the mid-term elections."

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on Fox News Sunday, I got a lot of email from viewers, and I got to say I was surprised most of them wanted me to ask you this question. Why didn’t you do more to put Bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were President. There’s a new book out which I suspect you’ve read called the Looming Tower. And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, Bin Laden said I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of US troops. Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole.

CLINTON: OK..

WALLACE: …may I just finish the question sir. And after the attack, the book says, Bin Laden separated his leaders because he expected an attack and there was no response. I understand that hindsight is 20 20.

CLINTON: No let’s talk about…

WALLACE: …but the question is why didn’t you do more, connect the dots and put them out of business?

CLINTON: OK, let’s talk about it. I will answer all of those things on the merits but I want to talk about the context of which this…arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network…ABC just had a right wing conservative on the Path to 9/11 falsely claim that it was based on the 911 commission report with three things asserted against me that are directly contradicted by the 9/11 commission report. I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans who now say that I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was obsessed with Bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neocons claimed that I was too obsessed with finding Bin Laden when they didn’t have a single meeting about Bin Laden for the nine months after I left office. All the right wingers who now say that I didn’t do enough said that I did too much. Same people.

[snip]

CLINTON: I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill him. The CIA was run by George Tenet who President Bush gave the medal of freedom to and said he did a good job. The country never had a comprehensive anti terror operation until I came to office. If you can criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this, after the Cole I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full scale attack search for Bin Laden. But we needed baseing rights in Uzbekistan which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that Bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would have had to send a few hundred special forces in helicopters and refuel at night. Even the 9/11 Commission didn’t do that. Now the 9/11 Commission was a political document too. All I’m asking is if anybody wants to say I didn’t do enough, you read Richard Clarke’s book.

WALLACE: Do you think you did enough sir?

CLINTON: No, because I didn’t get him

WALLACE: Right…

CLINTON: But at least I tried. That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try and they didn’t….. I tired. So I tried and failed. When I failed I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke… So you did FOX’s bidding on this show. You did you nice little conservative hit job on me. But what I want to know..

WALLACE: Now wait a minute sir…

CLINTON:..

WALLACE: I asked a question. You don’t think that’s a legitimate question?

CLINTON: It was a perfectly legitimate question but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked why didn’t you do anything about the Cole. I want to know how many you asked why did you fire Dick Clarke.

[snip]

CLINTON: I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it but I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending special forces in to Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise…We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. Until I left office. And yet I get asked about this all the time and they had three times as much time to get him as I did and no one ever asks them about this. I think that’s strange.

The republic of fear is born again. The state of terror now gripping Iraq is as bad as it was under Saddam Hussein. Torture in the country may even be worse than it was during his rule, the United Nation's special investigator on torture said yesterday.

"The situation as far as torture is concerned now in Iraq is totally out of hand," said Manfred Nowak. "The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it had been in the times of Saddam Hussein."

The report, from an even-handed senior UN official, is in sharp contrast with the hopes of George Bush and Tony Blair, when in 2003 they promised to bring democracy and respect for human rights to the people of Iraq. The brutal tortures committed in the prisons of the regime overthrown in 2003 are being emulated and surpassed in the detention centres of the present US- and British-backed Iraqi government. "Detainees' bodies show signs of beating using electric cables, wounds in different parts of their bodies including in the head and genitals, broken bones of legs and hands, electric and cigarette burns," the human rights office of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq says in a new report.

[snip]

One US Army major was quoted as saying that Baghdad is now a Hobbesian world where everybody is at war with everybody else and the only protection is self-protection.

Iraq is in a state of primal anarchy. Paradoxically, the final collapse of security this summer is masked from the outside world because the country is too dangerous for journalists to report what is happening. Some 134 journalists, mostly Iraqi, have been killed since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The continuing rise in the number of civilians killed violently in Iraq underlines the failure of the new Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki installed in May after intense US and British pressure. The new government shows no signs of being more effective than the old. "It is just a government of the Green Zone," said an Iraqi official, referring to the fortified zone in central Baghdad housing the Iraqi government as well as the US and British embassies.

In an attempt to regain control of the capital and reduce sectarian violence, government and US troops launched "Operation Together Forward" in mid-July, but it seems to have had only marginal impact for a couple of weeks. The number of civilians killed in July was 3,590 and fell to 3,009 in August but was on the rise again at the end of the month.

In a major shift of policy, the federal government recommended yesterday that all teenagers and most adults have H.I.V. tests as part of routine medical care because too many Americans infected with the AIDS virus don’t know it.

The recommendation, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urges testing at least once for everyone aged 13 to 64 and annual tests for those with high-risk behavior.

The proposal is a sharp break from the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when the stigma of the disease and the fear of social ostracism caused many people to avoid being tested.

That led to heated debate about whether positive test results could be shared by medical and governmental authorities in their effort to contain the epidemic by reaching out to partners of those who might be infected.

Under the agency’s plan, which states can adopt or modify if they choose, patients would be advised they were being tested, but the tests would be voluntary.

So that the tests could be easily administered, however, the agency urged the removal of two major barriers that some states now have: separate signed consent forms and lengthy counseling before each test.

That would require new laws in some states, however, which could take years because some civil liberties groups and lobbyists for people with AIDS oppose the changes.

Many doctors are expected to welcome the changes.

“These recommendations are important for early diagnosis and to reduce the stigma still associated with H.I.V. testing,” said Dr. Nancy Nielsen, a board member of the American Medical Association, which endorsed the new guidelines.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, the disease control agency’s director and a doctor who treated some of the first San Francisco AIDS patients in 1981, said: “Our traditional approaches have not been successful. People who don’t know their own H.I.V. status account for 50 to 70 percent of all new infections. If they knew, they would take steps to protect themselves and their partners.”

The new guidelines, if adopted, would move the agency toward its “ultimate goals,” which Dr. Gerberding described as: no more H.I.V.-infected children, no one living for years without antiretroviral treatment and, eventually, no more new cases of the disease.

About 40,000 Americans are newly infected each year, a number that has been remaining steady. In contrast to the early days of the epidemic, which struck gay men the hardest, many of those now infected are black or Hispanic, are teenagers and were infected by heterosexual sex. The agency estimates that 250,000 Americans, a quarter of those with the disease, do not know they are infected.

Troubling new evidence tonight about massive waste and corruption by American contractors in Iraq. Nearly $10 billion of U.S. government money in Iraq is unaccounted for, $10 billion. And perhaps even more disturbing, taxpayer dollars enabled many of those contractors in Iraq to have better living conditions than our own troops. Lisa Sylvester reports from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT, LOU DOBBS TONIGHT (voice over): Iraq is a cash cow for government contractors who collect $10 of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and often don't deliver the goods.

The U.S. government contracted to have a prison built for 4,400 prisoners, the cost, $45 million. The taxpayers ended up paying $48 million for a prison a third of the size. In a separate case, the U.S. government paid the contractor Parsons $200 million to complete 142 health clinics, six were completed.

SEN. BYRON DORGAN, (D) NORTH DAKOTA: I think it's almost unbelievable that the oversight and the accountability is not there, no one seems to give a damn.

SYLVESTER: The Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing accusing the Republican-controlled Congress of not investigating rampant waste and abuse. Julie McBride, a former Halliburton worker testified that that perks meant for the troops were going to Halliburton big wigs.

JULIE MCBRIDE, FMR. HALLIBURTON EMPLOYEE: Halliburton employees also exploit requisitions to obtain luxuries that are not afforded to the troops, one example of this was a Super Bowl party for Halliburton employees only, at taxpayer expense. Halliburton requisitioned a big screen TV and lots of food for the private use of Halliburton employees.

SYLVESTER: Half of the $18 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds are unaccounted for. The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction has opened up 40 new investigations of alleged fraud and corruption. The money wasted on government contracts comes directly out of the pockets of U.S. taxpayers. But it also costs troop morale.

PATRICK CAMPBELL, IRAQ-AFGHANISTAN VETERAN: Soldiers don't have a whole lot when they're sitting in 20-man tent, and when they see KBR employees driving around in their personal vehicles, and eating better food than them, it just totally drives you down.

SYLVESTER: So, far the Justice Department has not brought any civil or criminal cases to recover for contracting fraud in Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SYLVESTER: Halliburton responded to today's hearing saying it takes any charges of improper conduct seriously. The company's code of conduct, quote, does not allow unethical business practices -- Lou?

DOBBS: And what about the issue of those contractors receiving better treatment, food, housing, living conditions than our troops in Iraq? Any investigation under way there?

SYLVESTER: This is a huge problem. It's one that many soldiers, and that our troops will come back, and we often hear these stories, anecdotally. As far as what Halliburton says, is it says that it is allowed to provide for the morale of its employees, but there clearly is a discrepancy in the way Halliburton has been treating its employees versus how and some of the services that the troops have been receiving, Lou.

DOBBS: That's a combat theater and I think the generals would have some explaining to do on that issue as well. As well as the issue, in this administration, in terms of the pay of private security forces and their living conditions as compared to American troops are doing the tough, tough job of trying to stabilize Iraq.

"I was raised as a Christian and my mother was raised as a Christian," Allen, 54, said. "And I embrace and take great pride in every aspect of my diverse heritage, including my Lumbroso family line's Jewish heritage, which I learned about from a recent magazine article and my mother confirmed."

I meet all three tests of being Jewish. Since early childhood, I have been aware of my Jewish identity. So have others. Many millions of Americans associate the name Cohen with the Jewish people. Jews who convert to other religions not infrequently change their names to make their conversion clear.

But I understand the anguish and the confusion that the sudden discovery of one or more Jewish ancestors can cause. It raises questions of who one's ancestors were, who one is, and what relationship, if any, one should have with the Jewish people.

It also raises questions of the sincerity of one's religious beliefs. The Spanish Inquisition was much more about investigating professed Christians of Jewish ancestry--the moranos-- who allegedly were secretly practicing the Jewish religion, than it was about investigating Jews as such. True Jews were not allowed to be living in Spain at the time.

The idea that some Christians are not true Christians carries weight with elements of the religious right. It is only a short step from that belief to the belief that these Christians may include secret Jews in their ranks.

Politicians have joked about their Jewish ancestry. John Kerry, after discovering it in the Washington Post, went to a St. Patrick's Day celebration and proclaimed he had the "matzo balls" to be there that day. Barry Goldwater, an opponent of federal civil rights legislation, told of asking a manager of a country club that banned Jews from the golf course: "But I'm only half Jewish. Can't I play nine holes?"

There has always been intermarriage. There have always been conversions of people from one religion to another. The more the ever-increasing computerization and translation of records proceeds over time, the more people will learn of their Jewish ancestors.

[snip]

There are about 5 million Americans who profess to be of the Jewish religion. There are many, many more Americans who have some Jewish ancestry. Senator Allen should know that he is in good company.

In the midterm election on November 7, Bush predicted Democrats won't win either the House or the Senate. "I believe these elections will come down to two things: one, firm belief that in order to win the war on terror there must be a comprehensive strategy that recognizes this war is being fought on more than one front, and, two, the economy." Bush said the price of gasoline, which has been falling rapidly, is one of the "interesting indicators" that the press should watch carefully. "Just giving you a heads up," he added.

Now, Digby observed that Bush must have told Them - the Oil "Them" - to open the spigot. And indeed, gas prices have fallen. But in truth, it's a leap of faith to suggest that the lower oil prices this election seas...sorry, I meant, this fall, had anything to do with the fact that there are 2 oilmen running the United States and their political ass is on the line. I wouldn't presume to suggest, say, that Bush, Cheney, and Rice begged the cartels and companies to temporarily ease off on the pricegoug... sorry, the utterly fair profit margin they're taking.

No, what interests me is Bush's confidence that the election is in the bag. And him giving his rightwing press pals a "heads up." A heads up. For what? The world anxiously awaits. And I'm not kidding.

I remind you: Bush don't bluff. Bush do whatever the hell he wants to do. If I were Betting Bill Bennett, I'd lay even odds that the Mayberry Machiavelllis got a little treat in store for the rest of us this fall. And no, I'm bettin' it ain't jes' gamey voting machines, which goes without saying.

As it happens, I've kept a short list of October surprises I've been working on and I was gonna wait until, you guessed it, October, but given that the "heads up" comment seems to have slipped under the radar a little, I thought I'd release it now to draw a little attention to the very probable threat behind Bush's remark.


Potential October Surprises


1. Osama bin Laden is captured or killed. That would explain why Osama's name's been cropping up in Bush's speech after so long an absence. Somewhat possible.

2. Another attack on the continental US. This seems unlikely to me, not only because Bush/Rove would never plan such a thing -they didn't in the past and they won't in the future, people. Nor will they let bin Laden or any of the zillion of new enemies Bush and Cheney have created do 9/11 part deux from their neglect. Why? The country simply won't unite behind Bush if he neglects to protect us a third (or fourth) time during his regime. He got a free pass on September 11, ditto for anthrax. But after Katrina, a spectacular attack on the "homeland" ain't gonna play too well.

3. A nuclear strike, either on Iran or somewhere else like NoKo, unilateral, pre-emptive, and announced as a fait accompli. Bush has, after all, started military ops against Iran, according to Sam Gardiner. Not that likely, but I was getting jumpy one night, and the paranoia overruled my desire to sleep.

4. The exquisitely-timed revelation of a major financial or sexual scandal involving major Democrats. I think this is very likely.

5. Rumsfeld will resign for "health reasons." Very likely, imo. Everyone loathes him. His replacement? Well, the kind of mentality that would replace a bozo like Ashcroft with a worse bozo like Gonzales...who's to say? Jerry Boykin? Nah, not even Bush is that stu...as I was saying...who knows who will replace Rumsfeld? But I think Rumsfeld is about to pursue a career for which he has genuine talent: Comic poetry.

6. Bush got bupkus and the "heads up" really is a bluff, which means he psyched us out and so we waste tons of time and bucks trying to figure out what's he holding and come up empty. I think that's highly unlikely. He's a liar but he's no bluffer, if you can get your heads around that. (And if you do, you can 'splain it to me sometime 'cause I can't.)

7. Gas prices will fall. Oh, right, that happened already, but it's not enough to tip the election his way.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia has Democrats sniping at him for a comment he made last week suggesting that if the South had had better intelligence, it would have won the Civil War.

Democrats leaked a story to a Capitol Hill newspaper, published Monday, that Chambliss, a Republican, had said in a closed-door meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday that had the South won, "We'd be quoting Jefferson Davis, not Lincoln."

The newspaper, Roll Call, quoted unnamed Democrats as decrying what they termed Chambliss' inappropriate comparison of the Civil War to the war on terror.

But Chambliss' staff said he never made reference to Davis, the Confederate president. He didn't even raise the subject of the Civil War, they said.

[snip]

What Chambliss said, according to his office, was, "If Gen. J.E.B. Stuart had had better intelligence, we'd all be meeting in Richmond right now." Stuart, a West Point graduate and cavalry officer, was a pioneer in the use of scouts and wartime intelligence.

Chambliss' spokeswoman, Lindsay Mabry, said Chambliss was only trying to make the point that "intelligence plays an absolutely critical role in wartime and the side that has the better intelligence is going to win."

"If you just look at how we are perceived in the world and the kind of criticism we have taken over Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and renditions," Powell said in an interview, "whether we believe it or not, people are now starting to question whether we're following our own high standards."

Powell, elaborating on a position first expressed last week in a letter to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), also argued that the administration's plan to "clarify" U.S. obligations under the Geneva Conventions would set a precedent for other nations that would endanger U.S. troops.

"Suppose North Korea or somebody else wants to redefine or 'clarify' " Geneva Conventions provisions prohibiting "outrages against personal dignity" and "humiliating and degrading treatment" of prisoners, he said.

Powell's opposition marks a rare public breach with the administration he left 20 months ago. As secretary of state, he repeatedly clashed privately with Vice President Cheney and others who had more hard-line foreign policy views. But since leaving office he has declined nearly all opportunities to publicly criticize even those policies he opposed internally.

Powell has said he regrets that the Iraq invasion was launched on the basis of false intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs and Hussein's relationship with al-Qaeda, information that he vouched for in an address before a hostile United Nations. He has also said that he believes the administration should have sent more troops to invade Iraq and provided a better postwar plan.

If Mr. Powell's letter -- cautionary, concerned, predominantly supportive -- can induce from you such wrath and such intolerance, what would you say were this statement to be shouted to you by a reporter, or written to you by a colleague?

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”

Those incendiary thoughts came, of course, from a prior holder of your job, Mr. Bush.

They were the words of Thomas Jefferson.

He put them in the Declaration of Independence.

Mr. Bush, what would you say to something that anti-thetical to the status quo just now?

Would you call it "unacceptable" for Jefferson to think such things, or to write them?

Between your confidence in your infallibility, sir, and your demonizing of dissent, and now these rages better suited to a thwarted three-year old, you have left the unnerving sense of a White House coming unglued - a chilling suspicion that perhaps we have not seen the peak of the anger; that we can no longer forecast what next will be said to, or about, anyone who disagrees.

Or what will next be done to them.

[snip]

There needs to be a delegation of responsible leaders -- Republicans or otherwise -- who can sit you down as Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott once sat Richard Nixon down - and explain the reality of the situation you have created.

There needs to be an apology from the President of the United States.

And more than one.

But, Mr. Bush, the others -- for warnings unheeded five years ago, for war unjustified four years ago, for battle unprepared three years ago -- they are not weighted with the urgency and necessity of this one.

We must know that, to you, thought with which you disagree -- and even voice with which you disagree and even action with which you disagree -- are still sacrosanct to you.

The philosopher Voltaire once insisted to another author, "I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write." Since the nation's birth, Mr. Bush, we have misquoted and even embellished that statement, but we have served ourselves well, by subscribing to its essence.

Oddly, there are other words of Voltaire's that are more pertinent still, just now.

"Think for yourselves," he wrote, "and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too."

Apologize, sir, for even hinting at an America where a few have that privilege to think and the rest of us get yelled at by the President.

Anything else, Mr. Bush, is truly unacceptable.

So why is the Bush administration so determined to torture people?

To show that it can.

The central drive of the Bush administration — more fundamental than any particular policy — has been the effort to eliminate all limits on the president’s power. Torture, I believe, appeals to the president and the vice president precisely because it’s a violation of both law and tradition. By making an illegal and immoral practice a key element of U.S. policy, they’re asserting their right to do whatever they claim is necessary.

In one of the sharpest exchanges of the campaign, Mr. Webb and Mr. Allen squared off on the war in Iraq on “Meet the Press” on NBC on Sunday, with Mr. Allen defending the Bush administration’s policy and denouncing the “second-guessing and Monday-morning quarterbacking” of the critics. “We’re going to need to do what it takes to succeed,” Mr. Allen said, when asked if he would support additional troops in Iraq, “because it’s essential to the security of the United States of America.”

Mr. Webb responded: “I know what it’s like to be on the ground. I know what it’s like to fight a war like this, and either — there are limits to what the military can do. Eventually, this is going to have to move into a diplomatic environment, and that’s where this administration seems to have blinders. They are not talking to Syria, they are not talking to Iran, and there are ways that we can do this, move this forward.”

Mr. Webb also took several digs at what he called theorists in the administration and among its allies who know combat only in the abstract. Mr. Allen, like the majority of the current Congress, did not serve in the military.

In recent days, the Allen campaign, acknowledging a newly competitive race, has gone on the attack. A Mason-Dixon poll conducted this month found Mr. Allen’s lead, once in the double-digits, had shrunk, with 46 percent for Mr. Allen, 42 percent for Mr. Webb, and a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

It all began at the wedding of the Goddess Thetis and King Peleus of Greece. Eris had not been invited, and decided to do a little mischief as payback. She tossed an apple of gold in among the guests (Gods and mortals alike).

This apple was engraved with the word Kallisti, meaning "for the fairest". Needless to say, all the Goddesses present at the wedding felt that the apple belong to them. After much bickering, the choices were narrowed down to Aphrodite, Hera and Athena. Being a wise man, Zeus wanted no part of this contest and send the 3 Goddesses to find Paris of Troy. He would be the one to decide who gets the apple.
Well, all three Goddesses did their best to sway Paris, but in the end he chose Aphrodite. As his reward, Paris was given Helen (the most beautiful mortal woman) as his wife. Unfortunately, she was already married to King Menelaus. Well, Paris took Helen back to Troy anyway and King Menelaus attacked the city in retribution. And thusly, the Trojan War was born.

In the Nov. 7 election, more than 80 percent of voters will use electronic voting machines, and a third of all precincts this year are using the technology for the first time. The changes are part of a national wave, prompted by the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 and numerous revisions of state laws, that led to the replacement of outdated voting machines with computer-based electronic machines, along with centralized databases of registered voters and other steps to refine the administration of elections.

But in Maryland last Tuesday, a combination of human blunders and technological glitches caused long lines and delays in vote-counting. The problems, which followed ones earlier this year in Ohio, Illinois and several other states, have contributed to doubts among some experts about whether the new systems are reliable and whether election officials are adequately prepared to use them.

In a polarized political climate, in which elections are routinely marked by litigation and allegations of incompetent administration or outright tampering, some worry that voting problems could cast a Florida-style shadow over this fall's midterm elections.

"We could see that control of Congress is going to be decided by races in recount situations that might not be determined for several weeks," said Paul S. DeGregorio, chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, although he added that he does not expect problems of this magnitude.

"It's hard to put a factor on how ill-prepared we are," said former Ohio governor Richard F. Celeste, a Democrat who recently co-chaired a study of new machines with Republican Richard L. Thornburgh, former governor of Pennsylvania, for the National Research Council. They advised local election officials to prepare backup plans for November.

"What we know is, these technologies require significant testing and debugging to make them work," added Celeste, now president of Colorado College. "Our concern -- particularly as we look to the November election, when there is a lot of pressure on -- is that election officials consider what kinds of fallbacks they can put in place."

The main focus is on whether people know how to properly use the machines, particularly the large army of volunteers who staff the polls at most precincts.

"We know the equipment works because it's been qualified to federal standards," said Kevin J. Kennedy, executive director of the Wisconsin State Elections Board and president of the National Association of State Election Directors. "The real challenge is to make sure our poll workers are trained and make sure voters have been educated so that we don't have an experience like Maryland had."

What is clear is that a national effort to improve election procedures six years ago -- after the presidential election ended with ambiguous ballots and allegations of miscounted votes and partisan favoritism in Florida -- has failed to restore broad public confidence that the system is fair.

[snip]

This year, there are debates over standards for keeping voter registration rolls up to date; for the handling of "provisional ballots" used by people who do not show up on those rolls but believe they are legally qualified to vote; and for assuring the validity of electronic vote counts through the use of paper trails for all electronic machines. State legislation requiring state or federal identification for all voters has been challenged in courts.

One reason many issues are coming to a head this year is that the Help America Vote Act set the start of 2006 as the deadline for states to comply fully with its regulations.

Help America Vote does not mandate electronic voting, but it has greatly accelerated that trend. The law banned lever machines and punch cards to end debates about ambiguous "hanging chads" of the sort that occurred in Florida in 2000. What is clear is that electronic machines have their own imponderables.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) doesn't believe that Hillary Clinton has the inside track on the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and says he would vigorously defend himself against new attacks by the Swift Boat team, according to an interview with The Examiner.

"I’m prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other," said Kerry, in a strong hint that he intends to run for president once again.

In response to wide talk of Sen. Clinton (D-NY) being the favorite for the Democrats in 2008, Kerry says, "I don’t buy it. ... I don’t care what the dominant, conventional wisdom is today; it will not be the dominant, conventional wisdom in a year."

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

Adapted from "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, copyright Knopf 2006

can't help but feel sorry for my old Republican friends in Congress who are fighting for their political lives. After all, it must be tough explaining to voters at their local Baptist church's Keep Congress Conservative Day that it was their party that took a $155 billion surplus and turned it into a record-setting $400 billion deficit.

How exactly does one convince the teeming masses that Republicans deserve to stay in power despite botching a war, doubling the national debt, keeping company with Jack Abramoff, fumbling the response to Hurricane Katrina, expanding the government at record rates, raising cronyism to an art form, playing poker with Duke Cunningham, isolating America and repeatedly electing Tom DeLay as their House majority leader?

How does a God-fearing Reagan Republican explain all that away?

Easy. Blame George W. Bush.

Escaping political death by attacking an unpopular president is hardly new -- especially since most endangered politicians have the loyalty of a starving billy goat. But this is Dubya's Washington, where the White House has pushed around, bullied and betrayed GOP lawmakers for years.

Republican House members and senators always believed that this White House took them for granted. But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, most of them had no choice but to sulk in their cloakrooms, listen to Debby Boone on their iPods and take it like a man. Bush was a rock star among the party faithful through the 2004 election, so crossing this popular commander in chief was not an option. That's not to say that Old Bulls didn't privately growl about how they were treated better when their old nemesis was still frolicking with an intern. So what if Bill Clinton misbehaved? At least that president found time to personally negotiate terms of subcommittee markups -- even if he was defiling the Oval Office at the same time.

But that kind of give-and-take between presidents and members of Congress ended once Clinton retired to Chappaqua. For the next five years, Republicans on the Hill would do little more than rubber-stamp Bush's domestic and international agenda because lawmakers were intimidated by his power and his popularity with the Republican base.

[snip]

That silence -- proof that it is better to be feared than loved in politics -- has had devastating results. The United States is more divided than ever, our leaders are despised around the world, our fiscal situation is catastrophic and congressional approval ratings are the lowest ever. Since nothing sharpens the mind like a political hanging, Republican leaders in the Senate and House are finally considering doing what effete newspaper editorialists have suggested for years: throwing Bush overboard.

Of course, the mere suggestion makes some Republican loyalists shudder. Being a faithful follower of Brother Bush has long been synonymous with loving Jesus, supporting the troops and taking a stand against sodomy. But no more. Many of the conservatives who put Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich in power are counting the days until Bush goes to Crawford for good. Some mutter that their leader's governing style looks more like Jimmy Carter's every day -- and among that crowd, there is no harsher insult.