Think Progress

Under the Radar

IRAQ -- STATE DEPARTMENT BLOWS OFF WAXMAN'S NIGER INQUIRY: Yesterday, House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote another letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requesting her testimony regarding President Bush's claims that Iraq attempted to procure uranium from Niger. Waxman writes that his previous letters to Rice produced "an insufficient response from the State Department's Legislative Affairs office." In yesterday's State Department press briefing, spokesman Sean McCormack claimed the letter "answered in full" all of Waxman's inquiries. "I don't really see the need. I think the letter that we replied to answered in full all of his inquiries," said McCormack. "I'm very curious as to in what regard it's insufficient." But Waxman lays out plainly why the State Department's response has been "insufficient." Specifically, he states that the State Department has not been forthcoming about Rice's knowledge about the false Niger uranium claim that made its way into Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. (Read the full letter here.) "Rather than address any of these questions, Mr. Bergner forwarded copies of two old State Department letters that have no bearing whatsoever on your knowledge of, your role in, or your statements about the Niger claim," writes Waxman. Rice's days of blowing off Waxman's letters are over. If the State Department can't find time to read and adequately respond to his inquiries, Waxman said he will request her testimony on April 18.

AFGHANISTAN -- TALIBAN 'DEADLIER THAN EVER' WITH TACTICS FROM IRAQ: In an interview with ABC News Monday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai claimed that "neither has the U.S. failed, nor the Taliban coming back. Al Qaeda is defeated." Yet despite Karzai's claims, the Taliban is still very active in Afghanistan. Another report by ABC News that same day asserted that "coalition forces in Afghanistan are fighting a deadlier Taliban than ever, as jihadis returning from Iraq use techniques like suicide bombings and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to challenge NATO forces." Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism czar under both Presidents Bush and Clinton, told ABC News that "the cross-pollination from Iraq is making it much more difficult for NATO soldiers in Afghanistan." For example, an Easter Sunday IED attack that killed six Canadian NATO soldiers is reported to be "the worst toll on foreign troops in a single combat incident" since 2005.  Though Karzai dismissed reports that the Taliban and al Qaeda are planning a "spring offensive" of suicide bombings as "a sign of desperation," experts told ABC that enough Taliban members are back from Iraq to have "significantly increased the number of attacks on NATO forces in recent months."  

MILITARY -- STATES' ABILITY TO RESPOND TO DOMESTIC CRISES HAMPERED BY WARS: Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said yesterday that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have "stretched the Florida National Guard further than ever before," hampering the state's ability to respond to domestic crises including this year's hurricane season which is predicted to be "very active." While the Government Accountability Office recently found that the Florida National Guard had only "53% of the dual-use equipment it once had for responding to a storm," a Florida Guard spokesman assured the Associated Press that sufficient manpower and equipment remained to respond to a "major storm" and that additional equipment could be "borrowed from other states" or even "rented if needed." The state's ability to predict such storms is also at risk. Last week the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans revealed that "a satellite crucial to developing hurricane forecasts is past its life expectancy and could die at any time." That satellite, which "helped the National Hurricane Center achieve record-breaking accuracy in its forecasts last year," was "launched in 1999 [and] was designed to last five years." Yesterday, Rep. Ron Klein (D-FL) called the situation "totally unacceptable, with what this country's been through." Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, however, that the $375 to $400 million needed to replace the satellite is not available. National Hurricane Center Director Bill Proenza explained, "The amount of money being invested in the hurricane warning program isn't up to the level of the threat that hurricanes present to this nation." He added, "this must be considered the largest natural disaster threat to this country."

Think Fast

President Bush, the Vice President, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State all failed to mention Iraq publicly yesterday on the fourth anniversary of the "liberation" of Baghdad. Instead, "the lead item on the White House Web site, under the heading 'LATEST NEWS,' was a photograph of Clifford the Big Red Dog at the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn."

MoveOn.org is hosting a "live 'virtual town hall' forum about the Iraq war, in what is being billed as the largest and most ambitious experiment yet in harnessing the power of Internet technology to reshape participatory democracy." Seven Democratic presidential candidates are expected to take part in the event tonight.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad invited Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others in her delegation that met him in Damascus last week to make a return visit, Rep. Tom Lantos said. "I have every intention of going back," said Lantos, refusing to back down in the face of heavy criticism from the White House.

"A half-dozen sitting U.S. attorneys also serve as aides to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales or are assigned other Washington postings, performing tasks that take them away from regular duties in their districts for months or even years at a time, according to officials and department records."

The late Jeane Kirkpatrick, "the godmother of the neoconservative movement," and former U.N. ambassador whom John Bolton sought to emulate, acknowledges in a posthumous memoir that the Iraq war was "something of a mistake."

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) yesterday said that he would have "taken his tour of an Iraqi market last week even if he hadn't been accompanied by heavily armed U.S. soldiers." He added that the only reason he walked through Baghdad's Shorja market with 100 soldiers, three Blackhawks, and two Apache gunships was because "General Petraeus asked" him to do so.

"Public approval for Congress is at its highest level in a year as [the 110th Congress marks] 100 days in power and step up their confrontation with President Bush over his handling of the Iraq War, the issue that overshadows all others."

"Millions of dollars of North Korean funds, frozen for two years amid allegations of money laundering, are to be released," the Bush administration said. "The chief US nuclear envoy said the release of the funds cleared the way for the North -- which in October said it had successfully tested a nuclear weapon -- to begin shutting down the reactor later this week."

"Stem cells will be at the top of the agenda for the U.S. Senate" when it returns from recess today. The Senate will consider a bill to expand federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research. President Bush vetoed a similar bill last year.

And finally: Each year, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression gives out Jefferson Muzzle awards to "the most egregious First Amendment violators." This year's winners: the Bush administration (for censoring scientists on climate change) and the Defense Department (for its "investigations of organizations that conducted peaceful anti-war protests").