Eye On U.S.A

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The Woman Who Would Be Speaker

On election night 2004, Nancy Pelosi faced a painful reality: Her party was again a big loser, failing to win the presidency and losing three more House seats. Pundits were suggesting Pelosi should accept her fate as the leader of a permanent House minority.

But the California legislator had a different idea. Instead, she reached out to advertising executives, Internet moguls and language specialists to ask how Democrats could rise from the ashes and challenge President Bush and the Republicans. The advice that came back was unabashed: "You must take him down" and then hammer away at the differences between the two parties, Pelosi recalled.

Today the Democrats appear capable of taking back leadership of the House after 12 years in the minority, for reasons largely beyond Pelosi's control: an unpopular war, an unpopular president and a series of scandals that have left the Republicans highly vulnerable.

Nevertheless, if the Democrats win, experts say, much credit is due this 66-year-old woman, whose notable fundraising abilities (she raised $50 million this election cycle) and scorched-earth strategy of refusing to negotiate with the GOP have put her on track to become the first woman to be speaker of the House.

Dismissed by her critics as too liberal, too elitist and too lacking in gravitas, Pelosi, serving her 10th term, has proved to be a tough-minded tactician who has led her caucus from the political center and kept the fractious House Democrats in line. Pelosi and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) rarely work together, and the Democrats voted along party lines 88 percent of the time last year -- the most unified voting record in 50 years -- according to a Congressional Quarterly study. By hanging together, the Democrats have thwarted many GOP initiatives, including the centerpiece of Bush's second-term agenda, restructuring Social Security.

That approach, while emboldening the Democrats, has earned Pelosi the enmity of House Republicans, who claim she is an obstructionist. Pelosi, who is married to a wealthy San Francisco businessman and wears designer suits, is a favorite target of conservatives. Throughout the campaign, Republicans have sought to scare voters by portraying Pelosi as a liberal extremist who would be weak on national security and prone to raises taxes if her party were back in control.

On his Web site, Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) calls the prospect of Pelosi becoming speaker "just plain scary" and says: "While Republicans fight the War on Terror, . . . House Democrats plot to establish a Department of Peace."

Even before the Democrats' disappointing showing in the 2002 midterm elections, Pelosi began making calls to line up support for a minority-leader bid, in case then-Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) decided to step aside to run for president. Within days of Gephardt's decision to retire from the House, she locked up the post convincingly, by a vote of 177 to 29.

She took charge with a burst of energy and quickly developed a Democratic message that highlighted shortcomings in the Bush agenda. Later, she criticized the administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. Her strategy was to unite Democrats behind non-threatening, core issues such as the minimum wage, health care, Social Security and energy independence while steering clear of divisive social issues such as abortion rights and gun control.

While Pelosi appears at ease and chatty in informal gatherings, she often comes across as stiff and tentative in public, and she rarely projects well on television. After a halting performance on NBC's "Meet the Press" in May, Pelosi worked with media experts to polish her style and shorten her answers.

Some conservative Democrats say she has given them a voice in forming policy by creating a number of advisory groups that focus on, among other things, rural issues and faith. "It's much easier to hold the party together if the people who feel the most disaffected feel well-treated," said David Rohde, a professor of political science at Duke University.

Rep. Collin C. Peterson (Minn.) is one of those conservatives. "I have always believed that it takes someone of the same political persuasion to convince the folks on the left that we're not going to be able to govern if we don't come to the center," he said.

This summer, as Republicans were demonizing Pelosi as a liberal liability, Peterson invited her to his rural district -- where she looked comfortable eating a pork chop on a stick and vowed to direct energy money to the Midwest, instead of the Mideast.

Colleagues say Pelosi's polished Pacific Heights exterior belies an iron-fist management style. One of her first moves as leader was to take control over who gets seats on the most coveted committees -- Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Energy and Commerce.

The newspaper Roll Call said in December that Pelosi threatened to remove Rep. Edolphus Towns (N.Y.) from the Energy and Commerce Committee for siding with Republicans on a key trade bill. And despite objections from the Congressional Black Caucus and others, she demanded the removal of Rep. William J. Jefferson (La.) from the Ways and Means Committee after authorities caught him on tape accepting $100,000, allegedly in bribe money. The ousting of Jefferson startled even Republicans.

Pelosi's biggest challenge was in trying to forge a consensus on the war in Iraq, a near-impossible task given the sharp divisions among Democrats in the House and Senate and the political danger of openly challenging Bush on the war. She had been highly critical of Gephardt's support for the war in the fall of 2002 and helped line up 126 Democratic votes against the resolution authorizing an invasion of Iraq.

But as the new minority leader, Pelosi knew she could not impose her views on her caucus and instead initially took the position that it was the Republicans' war, for the Republicans to fix. Privately, however, she spent months conferring with Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a decorated Vietnam War veteran and prominent voice on military matters, who had voted for the war but was now souring on it. Pelosi knew that her voice would not be as credible as Murtha's.

The two planned Murtha's surprise turnaround a year ago, when he demanded immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. Two weeks later, Pelosi followed his lead.

Should the Democrats win in November, Pelosi said, their new majority will push for the immediate start of a phased withdrawal of troops, to be completed by the end of 2007.

At the same time, she said, the new majority would quickly move to raise the minimum wage, allow the government to negotiate directly with drug companies for lower prices for seniors, repeal corporate incentives to take jobs overseas, make college tuition tax-deductible, and implement all the recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, securing nuclear material from former Soviet states to keep it from terrorists.

Some Democrats complain that Pelosi relies on too tight a coterie of advisers, chief among them Reps. George Miller and Anna G. Eshoo of California. Others include Murtha, Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.), David R. Obey (Wis.), John M. Spratt Jr. (S.C.) and Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "The biggest complaint is that if you were not with her in the beginning you can't get in," a former leadership aide said.

Pelosi has signaled that she would not rely totally on seniority in appointing committee chairs. She has, however, told ranking members on the most powerful panels, Ways and Means, Rules, Energy and Commerce, and Appropriations, that she supports them.

And, after studiously avoiding cooperating with the Republican leadership for years, she has vowed to reach out to Republicans and be more inclusive. She said, for example, that she would allow Republicans to bring bills to the floor and have a say in conference committees. But many are skeptical.

"That would not happen," said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga). "I have never seen Nancy Pelosi reach out to a Republican."

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Pelosi was first elected to the House at 47, after she raised her five children. She grew up as a member of a prominent Maryland political family and developed an interest in politics at an early age. Her father, Thomas D'Alesandro Jr., was mayor of Baltimore for 12 years, and her brother, Thomas J. D'Alesandro III, later served as mayor for four years.

She attended Trinity College in Washington, a Catholic girls school, and met and married Paul Pelosi, today a millionaire investor. The couple settled in San Francisco, and Pelosi honed her political skills and developed a name while driving carpool -- as a fundraiser, state party chairwoman and Democratic National Committee member.

Markey said Pelosi was "no ordinary freshman" when she arrived through a special election. She was someone who could pick up the phone and call first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and raise millions when asked. Substantively, colleagues said she proved herself on key committees, including Appropriations and Intelligence.

In 2001, she successfully challenged the old boys' network by running for minority whip against the favored Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.), because, she said, she saw "more of the same" ahead for Democrats.

She quickly consolidated her power, sending a strong message to those she saw as adversaries. "If someone is her enemy, she shuts them out. She closes them down," Murtha said.

Members took note when Pelosi gave $10,000 to former Democratic representative Lynn Nancy Rivers of Michigan, whom reapportionment had pitted against a Democratic lion of the House, John D. Dingell, who had voted for Hoyer. "She was with the people who supported her," said Miller, her friend.

Murtha and others said she never brought Hoyer into her circle, although he is her No. 2 in the House Democratic leadership. Hoyer said in an interview that "Nancy and I have worked very effectively together."

Pelosi said she holds no grudge against Hoyer, but members said there was no missing her intentions when she did not dissuade Murtha from challenging Hoyer for the No. 2 leadership post.

In describing her dealings with fellow Democrats, Pelosi said, "I expect a certain level of discipline when we have agreed on where we're going." Some members, she said, "mistake sometimes my courtesy for a lack of strength, and they ought not to do that."

[Rasputin]

US 'arrogant and stupid' in Iraq

A senior US state department official has said that the US has shown "arrogance and stupidity" in Iraq.
Alberto Fernandez made the remarks during an interview with Arabic television station al-Jazeera.

The state department says Mr Fernandez was quoted incorrectly - but BBC Arabic language experts say Mr Fernandez did indeed use the words.

It comes after President George W Bush discussed changing tactics with top US commanders to try to combat the unrest.

Mr Fernandez, an Arabic speaker who is director of public diplomacy in the state department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, told Qatar-based al-Jazeera that the world was "witnessing failure in Iraq".

"That's not the failure of the United States alone, but it is a disaster for the region," he said.

I think there is great room for strong criticism, because without doubt, there was arrogance and stupidity by the United States in Iraq

Alberto Fernandez

"I think there is great room for strong criticism, because without doubt, there was arrogance and stupidity by the United States in Iraq."

He also said that the US was now willing to speak to any insurgent group except al-Qaeda in an effort to reduce sectarian bloodshed in Iraq.

"We are open to dialogue because we all know that, at the end of the day, the solution to the hell and the killings in Iraq is linked to an effective Iraqi national reconciliation."

Winds of change?

However, state department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "What he [Alberto Fernandez] says is that it is not an accurate quote."

Mr McCormack also denied that the US had been guilty of arrogance or stupidity saying that history would be the judge of US actions in Iraq.

HAVE YOUR SAY
The coalition should stay in Iraq. We owe the people that much

Mark, New Zealand


Send us your comments
The BBC Monitoring Service has confirmed that Mr Fernandez did use the words "arrogance and stupidity" in his interview.

Mr Fernandez's comments came after Mr Bush said that US troops were changing tactics to deal with the insurgency in Iraq.

Mr Bush held a video conference on the new measures with top US military commanders in Iraq on Saturday against the backdrop of more US losses in Iraq - 78 so far this month.


Mr Bush held talks on the violence with his military commanders

A new poll suggests two-thirds of Americans believe the US is losing the war in Iraq, a proportion which analysts says could translate into a drubbing at the polls for Mr Bush's Republican Party in next month's mid-term elections.

The BBC's James Westhead in Washington says that while there is no official change in US strategy, change is on everyone's lips.

But a report in the New York Times that officials are drawing up a timetable for Iraq's government to improve security has been denied by both White House and state department officials.

In an interview with the BBC, British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells has suggested that the Iraqi security forces could take over much of the work of US-led forces within a year.

On Sunday funerals were taking place for 17 people killed in a mortar attack on a market near the capital, Baghdad.

[Rasputin]

Boo!? An Inevitable October Surprise

The October surprise: It's as much a seasonal sure thing in Washington as cherry blossoms and the National Christmas Tree.

When leaves fall and elections loom, the term gets tossed around more than a Manning family football. This October, too, is chockablock with shockers. Already "October surprise" has been applied to: several unflattering new books about the White House, an upwardly revised civilian casualty estimate from the Iraq war, the Mark Foley scandal . . . and October isn't over yet.
Originally the term meant some alakazam rabbit-from-a-hat trick that an incumbent party would unveil to keep its candidate in office. Over time the phrase has been bandied about and overused to the point that it now means any startling surprise from any direction that might somehow affect the outcome of an election.

October, says Michele Swers, a political scientist at Georgetown University, "is when the electorate begins to focus on the candidates and the issues, and voters begin to actually look at what you do and what you say."

A surprise works, she says, "if there's already a national mood building for a certain issue. The surprise can exacerbate the mood of the people. Anything that intensifies a national wave is helpful."

On his MSNBC show last week, former congressman Joe Scarborough pointed out three recent eye-openers, including "the latest October surprise from New York's publishing world." Excited, he cited "State of Denial" by Bob Woodward, which actually went on sale Sept. 30, and "Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell" by Karen DeYoung, published on Oct. 10. Both books, by Washington Post reporters, "provided a double-barrel blast at the White House," Scarborough said.

He continued, "But now another book drops within weeks of the midterm elections, claiming the Bush White House played Christians for fools and called them nuts and lunatics behind their backs."

He was talking about David Kuo's "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction." Published this week, the book questions the Bush administration's sincerity when it comes to support for faith-based initiatives and for the social issues important to evangelicals.

On CNBC, Jed Babbin, who was a defense undersecretary in the George H.W. Bush administration, referred to the Johns Hopkins University study of Iraqi civilian deaths -- published in the British medical journal the Lancet -- as "another October surprise. . . . It's not at all credible."

Babbin said the number of Iraqi dead has been used before as a pre-November jolt. "The last time they published this same report," he said of the Johns Hopkins survey, "the same group went out and did a similar analysis two years ago, and guess what? They put it out just before the 2004 election."

The longest-running eyebrow-raiser of this October -- the Mark Foley scandal -- got its start in the final days of September. Keith Olbermann, host of the MSNBC program "Countdown," referred to it as a pre-October surprise, but the story has drip-dripped through the month. "The Democrats prayed for an October surprise," wrote syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg, "and like manna from heaven, a hypocritical, sexually disturbed Florida Republican dropped into their laps."

Some Republican strategists suggested that Democrats waited to make a big deal about Foley's instant messages to generate an autumnal bombshell.

The earliest mention of "October surprise" in a Nexis database search of American newspapers is in The Washington Post in late August 1980. William R. Van Cleve, co-director of candidate Ronald Reagan's panel of military policy advisers, said that the notion of the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter, pulling an "October surprise" somewhere in the world to influence the pending election "has been nagging at some of us for some period of time." The rumored surprise was an invasion of Iran, which was holding dozens of Americans captive.

In October 1992, the issue of Penthouse magazine with the Gennifer Flowers interview about her relationship with candidate Bill Clinton went on sale. In late September 1996, questions arose about campaign contributions from foreign sources to the reelection campaign of Clinton and Al Gore. On Nov. 2, 2000, just five days before the election, a Maine television station reported that candidate George W. Bush had been arrested in 1976 on a drunk-driving charge. "Call it the October surprise a few days late," a CBS reporter said at the time.

In some years the October surprise, like the Great Pumpkin or Godot, is much anticipated but never appears. But in recent years it's become so predictable, so commonplace, it should be called the October Same-Old Same-Old.

"Surprises, on schedule, are hardly surprises," Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report says in an interview. "The October surprise has become a tired ritual that needs reinvention."

There are variations. And trying to guess the next iteration -- sex scandal, international policy shift, military assault -- makes for a popular bar game. But in this era of muck-slinging politics with candidates "going negative" and "digging up dirt," a true October surprise would be an October without one.

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[Rasputin]

Yesterday, Obama said pursuit of the presidency cannot be based on celebrity and conceit. "It can't be something that you pursue on the basis of vanity and ambition," he said. "I think there's a certain soberness and seriousness required when you think about that office that is unique."

Obama advisers said yesterday that there has been little formal analysis done in preparation for a possible campaign, and they agreed they will now accelerate that work. But they said they are confident Obama could raise the money to run and noted that he has many offers from people interested in working in a campaign.

"He understands it's a lot easier when you're the subject of speculation than when you're in the arena battling it out," said David Axelrod, one of Obama's advisers. "I think that there's evaluative work to be done, but there are a lot of encouraging signs."

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs cautioned reading too much into the senator's comments yesterday. "It was simply the honest answer to the question. There isn't a formal process. He announced he was thinking about it. He didn't announce he was announcing."

Another adviser said the Obama team has not done a state-by-state analysis of fundraising potential, nor have they begun building organizations in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Several advisers denied that they had conducted focus groups about an Obama candidacy, as some other Democrats have suggested.

Personal factors may influence Obama's decision as much as political considerations, his advisers said. He has a young family and may not want to put them and himself through the rigors of a long campaign.

A large field of prospective candidates awaits Obama, if he decides to run. It includes Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, former North Carolina senator John Edwards, Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold. Some Democrats hope former vice president Al Gore will jump in.

Former Virginia governor Mark R. Warner announced this month that he will not run.

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Independent Voters Favor Democrats by 2 to 1 in Poll

Two weeks before the midterm elections, Republicans are losing the battle for independent voters, who now strongly favor Democrats on Iraq and other major issues facing the country and overwhelmingly prefer to see them take over the House in November, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The new poll underscores how much of a drag the war threatens to be on Republican candidates in competitive races. With debate underway in Washington about possible course changes in Iraq, Americans cite the war as the most important issue in determining their vote next month more often than any other issue, and those who do favor Democrats over Republicans by 76 percent to 21 percent.

Independents are poised to play a pivotal role in next month's elections because Democrats and Republicans are basically united behind candidates of their own parties. Ninety-five percent of Democrats said they will support Democratic candidates for the House, while slightly fewer Republicans, 88 percent, said they plan to vote for their party's candidates.

The independent voters surveyed said they plan to support Democratic candidates over Republicans by roughly 2 to 1 -- 59 percent to 31 percent -- the largest margin in any Post-ABC News poll this year. Forty-five percent said it would be good if Democrats recaptured the House majority, while 10 percent said it would not be. The rest said it would not matter.

The poll also found that independents are highly pessimistic about the Iraq war and the overall state of the country. Just 23 percent said the country is heading in the right direction, compared with 75 percent who said things have gotten off track. Only a quarter of independents approve of the job Congress has done this year. Only a third say the Iraq war is worth fighting. A month before the 2004 election, independents were almost evenly split on that question.

Independent voters may strongly favor Democrats, but their vote appears motivated more by dissatisfaction with Republicans than by enthusiasm for the opposition party. About half of those independents who said they plan to vote Democratic in their district said they are doing so primarily to vote against the Republican candidate rather than to affirmatively support the Democratic candidate. Just 22 percent of independents voting for Democrats are doing so "very enthusiastically."

Among the electorate as a whole, the poll highlighted how the political climate continues to favor Democrats. President Bush's approval rating among all Americans stood at 37 percent. Two weeks ago he was at 39 percent, and in September he was at 42 percent. By more than 2 to 1, Americans disapprove of the way Congress has been doing its job.

The generic vote for the House -- a question that asks people which party they favor in their district but that does not match actual candidates against one another -- remained strongly in the Democrats' favor, 54 percent to 41 percent.

These national numbers do not translate directly into predictions of whether Democrats will gain the 15 House seats or six Senate seats they need to take control of those chambers. But an analysis of the findings sheds light on why Republicans are now deeply worried about losing their House majority and why the Senate is in play as well.

The poll showed that Democrats not only have a significant advantage in blue states -- those won in the 2004 presidential race by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) -- but also have a narrow advantage in Bush-backing red states, which helps to explain why the number of GOP-held seats that appear competitive has increased recently.

Iraq is cited most frequently as the most important issue in the midterm elections. Two weeks ago, 26 percent of those surveyed cited the war as the single most important issue determining their vote in November, compared with 23 percent who cited the economy and 14 percent who said terrorism. In the new poll, 27 percent said Iraq, 19 percent cited the economy and 14 percent said terrorism.

Independents are almost as likely as Democrats to cite Iraq as the single most important issue in the campaign. Both groups are twice as likely as Republicans to single out the war when asked about the election's top issues.

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Independents do not limit their criticism of the war's handling to the president. Fifty-five percent of independents said congressional Republicans deserve a "great deal" or a "good amount" of the blame for problems in Iraq. Fewer, 36 percent, give congressional Republicans credit for helping prevent terrorist attacks against the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush agreed last week with a commentator's suggestion that a recent surge in violence in Iraq could be equivalent to the 1968 Tet Offensive, which marked a turning point in U.S. public support for the Vietnam War. But the percentage of Americans who believe that Iraq could be another Vietnam is no higher, at 45 percent, than it was in June.

Four in 10 Americans said the war is not worth fighting, and three in four said the war has damaged the United States' image in the rest of the world. Not quite half of those surveyed said that overall, the war has helped to improve the lives of the Iraqi people, a sharp decline since June, when roughly seven in 10 believed it had.

The small decline in the economy's ranking as a top voting issue comes at a time when Americans are increasingly upbeat about the state of the national economy. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said the economy is "good" or "excellent," a sharp jump over the past two weeks and the highest since Bush took office.

But Republicans appear to be getting little tangible benefit from the growing economic optimism, which has come amid declining gasoline prices and a record high in the Dow Jones industrial average. Those who cite the economy as the most important issue favor Democrats by 18 percentage points, 57 percent to 39 percent.

One reason is that only a quarter of those surveyed said they are getting ahead financially. About the same number said they are falling behind. Most, however, said they are just able to maintain their standard of living. Republicans have an advantage only among those who say their financial condition is improving.

Among those voting primarily on Iraq, Democrats hold a sizable lead, 76 percent to 21 percent, in voting intentions. Democrats also are favored by voters who cite health care as their most important issue, while those voting on terrorism or immigration strongly favor Republicans.

Voters also continue to trust Democrats more than Republicans to deal with the war, the economy, North Korea and ethics in government. On terrorism, the two parties are at parity.

But independents, the key swing voter group, strongly trust the Democrats on all of those issues by margins ranging from 14 percentage points on terrorism to 23 points on Iraq and North Korea and 26 points on ethics in government.

The growing independent support for Democratic House candidates represents a significant shift in attitudes since the 2004 election, when Democrats held only a slim advantage. In winning reelection, Bush narrowly lost the independent vote, 50 percent to 48 percent, and in the vote for the House, independents split 50 to 46 for Democratic candidates.

One important question that will affect the outcome of the elections is who shows up to vote. More Democrats than Republicans, 32 percent vs. 24 percent, said they are "very closely" following the campaign, and Democrats are more likely to be very enthusiastic about voting. Independents show less enthusiasm about this election than do Democrats or Republicans.

Almost three in five respondents said this congressional election is more important than past congressional elections. A higher percentage of Democrats said this election has more significance than did Republicans or independents.

Both parties are making extraordinary efforts to turn out their voters in November. Twenty-nine percent of registered voters said they had been contacted by one party or the other for their votes, and three in 10 of those said they had been contacted by advocates for both parties.

Republicans appear to be doing a better job of contacting independents. In the poll, 45 percent of those independents who said they had been contacted said they were urged to vote for Republicans, while 17 percent said they were urged to vote for Democrats. The rest said they were contacted by both sides.

The Post-ABC News poll findings are based on telephone interviews with 1,200 adults conducted Thursday through Sunday. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

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Cheney confirms use of waterboarding

In a radio interview Tuesday, US Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that US interrogators have used a controversial technique know as waterboarding to interrogate senior Al Qaeda suspects. McClatchy's Washington bureau reports that Mr. Cheney said the White House does not see the practice as torture, and allows the CIA to use it. Cheney said use of waterboarding was a "no-brainer for him."

In the interview on Tuesday, Scott Hennen of WDAY Radio in Fargo, N.D., told Cheney that listeners had asked him to "let the vice president know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves American lives."

"Again, this debate seems a little silly given the threat we face, would you agree?" Hennen said.

"I do agree," Cheney replied, according to a transcript of the interview released Wednesday. "And I think the terrorist threat, for example, with respect to our ability to interrogate high-value detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that's been a very important tool that we've had to be able to secure the nation."

Cheney added that Mohammed had provided "enormously valuable information about how many (al-Qaeda members) there are, about how they plan, what their training processes are and so forth. We've learned a lot. We need to be able to continue that."

"Would you agree that a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" asked Hennen.

"It's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president 'for torture.' We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in," Cheney replied. "We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we're party to and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that."

McClatchy also reports, however, that the US Army, senior Republican lawmakers, human rights experts, and many experts on the laws of war consider the technique to be "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment that's banned by US law and by international treaties that prohibit torture." Some intelligence experts also say that it is an ineffective technique that often produces false information because people subjected to waterboarding will tell their interrogators anything to stop it.

Waterboarding involves holding "a person's head under water or pouring water on cloth or cellophane placed over the nose and mouth to simulate drowning until the subject agrees to talk or confess. ABCNews reported last year that it began as a practice in the 1500s during the Italian Inquisition. Soldiers who had used it during US conflicts in the 20th century have been court-martialed. It was declared illegal by US generals during the Vietnam War.

A spokeswoman for Cheney denied that he confirmed, or endorsed, the use of the tactic by US interrogators.

"What the vice president was referring to was an interrogation program without torture," she said. "The vice president never goes into what may or may not be techniques or methods of questioning."

The White House also posted the transcript of the interview on its website. The interview transcript, however, includes the section where the Vice President endorses the use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique.

Last year, in an interview with the BBC, Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, said that in an internal Bush administration debate about the use of the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of detainees, Cheney led the argument to "do away with all restrictions."

In an opinion piece for Hearst newspapers last week, Helen Thomas wrote that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which sets up a system for trying detainees in military tribunals, also gives the President the right to decide what constitutes torture. White House spokesman Tony Snow later declined to say if waterboarding would be permissible under the new law. Three senior GOP senators who led the fight to enact the law believe that it does outlaw the technique, despite what the administration may feel.

In a piece for the Washington Post, Stephen Richard, director of the Washington office of the Open Society Institute, writes that both those in the administration who argue that the new Military Commissions law gives them "clear authorization" for "enhanced techniques" and those critics who say it "legalizes torture" are both wrong. Richard writes that if CIA interrogators, who stopped using waterboarding and other controversial techniques last year after Congress passed the McCain amendment banning cruel treatment, allow the administration to convince them the new law gives them "carte blanche" to use whatever technique they want, "they will be at greater risk than they were last fall." He points out that in the past, the US has prosecuted every one of these techniques as a war crime.

ABCNews reported last year that CIA agents who subjected themselves to waterboarding lasted an average of 14 seconds before they "give in." Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the so-called mastermind of 9/11, is rumored to have won the "admiration" of his interrogators when he lasted almost two-and-a-half minutes before "begging to confess."

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Bush attacks Democrats over taxes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, struggling to boost Republicans at risk of losing control of the U.S. Congress, said on Saturday his tax cuts were spurring vibrant economic growth and accused Democrats of wanting to raise taxes.

"Cutting your taxes worked," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Unfortunately, the Democrats are still determined to raise your taxes, and if they gain control of the Congress, they can do so without lifting a finger."

In a campaign dominated by growing concerns about the unrelenting bloodshed in Iraq, Bush has fallen back on a favorite Republican campaign theme that if Democrats were in control they would raise taxes, hurting the economy.


Polls show Democrats have a good chance of seizing control of the House of Representatives and possibly also the Senate in the November 7 election.

New York Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, who would likely become chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee if his party wins a majority in the House, said he had no intention of trying to roll back the tax cuts, which are due to expire in 2010, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

"I don't want to go retroactive in terms of any of the tax cuts. I think retroactive tax increases are bad tax policy," Rangel told the Post.

But Rangel said he's against extending the tax cuts beyond 2010.

Republicans seeking to keep votes have raised the specter of Rangel's elevation to chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee and his opposition to extending the tax cuts.
Democrats contend Bush's cuts in tax rates on income and investments have overwhelmingly favored the wealthy.

They say Bush's economic policies have racked up huge deficits, while failing to help middle-class Americans struggling with lackluster wage gains and rising costs for health care and college tuition.

While the U.S. economy grew briskly in the first half of this year, fresh data from the Commerce Department showed it slowing down amid a cooling off in the once-sizzling housing market.

Gross domestic product grew at sluggish 1.6 percent in the three months ended in September, the government said.


Bush said the slower pace of growth had been expected but added, "The evidence still points to a vibrant economy."

In the final 10 days before Election Day, Bush plans a blitz of campaign appearances. He was headed on Saturday to Indiana for a campaign rally and to South Carolina for a fund-raiser and a speech at Charleston Air Force Base.

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With Tribune on Block, L.A. Times Circulation Down 8%

The Los Angeles Times lost 8 percent of its daily circulation -- the most of any of the nation's largest newspapers -- over the past six months, potentially lowering its value even as suitors line up to bid on its parent company.

Nationally, newspaper circulation has been sliding since 1987 and the past six months were no exception. Overall circulation was down 2.8 percent from the comparable period last year. But the pain was felt worse in some cities than in others. The smaller-circulation Miami Herald, for example, was down 9 percent for daily and Sunday, while the New York tabloids -- the Post and Daily News -- gained.

The L.A. Times is owned by Chicago-based Tribune Co., which has put itself up for sale as the result of a boardroom war. A minority of board members are unhappy with the company's performance over the past year and think the company would be worth more split up or sold off.

On Friday, two private-equity groups -- Bain Capital of Boston and Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston combined with Texas Pacific Group of Fort Worth -- met Tribune's deadline for expressing interest in buying the company, said sources with knowledge of the submissions who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the bidding is private. Tribune's market capitalization is $8 billion.

Tribune's sentimental flagship is the Chicago Tribune, but the L.A. Times is its largest newspaper and accounts for about one-quarter of Tribune revenue. The Times has been at the heart of Tribune's cost-cutting efforts in recent months; Chicago executives fired Times publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson this month for refusing to cut more jobs.

The 8 percent drop in circulation was recorded in April through September and left the Times with a daily circulation of 775,766, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which monitors newspaper sales. The Times's Sunday circulation for the period was down 6 percent, to 1.2 million. The Times publisher said the big drop was attributable to low-value circulation -- such as giveaways -- that the paper cut to save money.

Other Tribune papers fared slightly better. Daily circulation at the Chicago Tribune was down 1.7 percent; the Hartford Courant was down 3.9 percent; the Baltimore Sun was down 4.4 percent; and Newsday was down 4.9 percent.

Tribune shares fell 50 cents in morning trading in reaction to the circulation news but mostly recovered during the day, closing down 2 cents at $33.45.

If the Times's circulation slide is the result of readers actively fleeing the paper, the company's value could be reduced as the sale process goes forward, said James C. Goss, an analyst with Barrington Research Associates Inc. of Chicago. That could lead bidders such as Bain and Lee to lowball Tribune, offering less per share to buy the company.

Analysts place Tribune's value at about $35 per share.

But if the 8 percent loss is the result of what Goss called "corporate choice" -- meaning that Tribune allowed low-value circulation to seep away -- that would be seen as smart corporate policy and could raise the value of the company.

However, allowing overall circulation to drop too far can result in lowered ad rates.

In a written statement, Times publisher David D. Hiller said his paper was focusing on "individually paid circulation," or full-price circulation. In that respect, the Times's circulation was up one-third of 1 percent over the past six months, yesterday's data showed.

Newspapers receive credit for other forms of circulation, such as "third-party sales," when a retailer agrees to buy a large number of newspapers at a reduced rate then give them away as a promotional tool. That kind of Times circulation was down 67 percent, the paper said.

The Washington Post lost 3.3 percent of its daily and 2.6 percent of its Sunday circulation in the same period. The New York Times was down 3.5 percent daily and Sunday. USA Today, the nation's largest newspaper, lost 1.3 percent.

In New York, the tabloid wars have been good for the industry: The New York Post's circulation was up 5 percent, while the Daily News's rose 1 percent.

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The leader of the 30-million-member National Association of Evangelicals in the US has resigned after being accused of paying for sex with a man.
The Reverend Ted Haggard said he would also temporarily step aside as head of his 14,000-strong New Life Church while his colleagues investigated the claims.

Mr Haggard, who is known as a vocal opponent of same-sex marriages, denies the accusations.

But a spokesman for his Colorado church said he had admitted "some guilt".

The row began after Mike Jones told a radio show in Denver, Colorado, that he had been paid to have sex with Mr Haggard nearly every month over the past three years.

I've never had a gay relationship with anybody and I'm steady with my wife

Reverend Ted Haggard

In a statement to the New Life Church, Mr Haggard said he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations".

"I am voluntarily stepping aside from leadership so that the overseer process can be allowed to proceed with integrity," he said.

In an interview with KUSA-TV, Mr Haggard said he "never had a gay relationship with anybody".

"I'm steady with my wife, I'm faithful to my wife," he said.

'Some admission'

But the acting pastor of his church in Colorado, Ross Parsley, said Mr Haggard had made some admissions.

"There has been some admission of indiscretion," he said. "Not admission to all of the material that has been discussed, but there is an admission of some guilt."

The allegations come as voters in Colorado and several other US states are due to hold simultaneous votes on gay marriage laws.


Mike Jones said he had been paid to have sex

Mr Jones, 49, said Mr Haggard's public stance on gay marriage had prompted him to reveal the details of their relationship.

"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," Mr Jones told the Associated Press news agency.

Mr Haggard, who has five children, became the president of the National Association of Evangelicals in 2003.

The preacher - who is also known as Pastor Ted - is one of America's most influential and politically well-connected religious leaders, says the BBC's Jane Little in Washington.

He has maintained close contacts with the White House and helped promote a conservative values platform.

His resignation comes as a blow for Republicans, who are hoping to energise a demoralised Christian base ahead of mid-term elections, our correspondent says.

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U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons

The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk.

The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage." Terrorists could use the information to train in counter-interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information about their methods and plots, according to government documents submitted to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Oct. 26.

The battle over legal rights for terrorism suspects detained for years in CIA prisons centers on Majid Khan, a 26-year-old former Catonsville resident who was one of 14 high-value detainees transferred in September from the "black" sites to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many detainees at Guantanamo, is seeking emergency access to him.

The government, in trying to block lawyers' access to the 14 detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees' experiences are a secret that should never be shared with the public.

Because Khan "was detained by CIA in this program, he may have come into possession of information, including locations of detention, conditions of detention, and alternative interrogation techniques that is classified at the TOP SECRET//SCI level," an affidavit from CIA Information Review Officer Marilyn A. Dorn states, using the acronym for "sensitive compartmented information."

Gitanjali Gutierrez, an attorney for Khan's family, responded in a court document yesterday that there is no evidence that Khan had top-secret information. "Rather," she said, "the executive is attempting to misuse its classification authority . . . to conceal illegal or embarrassing executive conduct."

Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor who has represented several detainees at Guantanamo, said the prisoners "can't even say what our government did to these guys to elicit the statements that are the basis for them being held. Kafka-esque doesn't do it justice. This is 'Alice in Wonderland.' "

Kathleen Blomquist, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said yesterday that details of the CIA program must be protected from disclosure. She said the lawyer's proposal for talking with Khan "is inadequate to protect unique and potentially highly classified information that is vital to our country's ability to fight terrorism."

Government lawyers also argue in court papers that detainees such as Khan previously held in CIA sites have no automatic right to speak to lawyers because the new Military Commissions Act, signed by President Bush last month, stripped them of access to U.S. courts. That law established separate military trials for terrorism suspects.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is considering whether Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts. The government urged Walton to defer any decision on access to lawyers until the higher court rules.

The government filing expresses concern that detainee attorneys will provide their clients with information about the outside world and relay information about detainees to others. In an affidavit, Guantanamo's staff judge advocate, Cmdr. Patrick M. McCarthy, said that in one case a detainee's attorney took questions from a BBC reporter with him into a meeting with a detainee at the camp. Such indirect interviews are "inconsistent with the purpose of counsel access" at the prison, McCarthy wrote.

Dorn said in the court papers that for lawyers to speak to former CIA detainees under the security protocol used for other Guantanamo detainees "poses an unacceptable risk of disclosure." But detainee attorneys said they have followed the protocol to the letter, and none has been accused of releasing information without government clearance.

Captives who have spent time in the secret prisons, and their advocates, have said the detainees were sometimes treated harshly with techniques that included "waterboarding," which simulates drowning. Bush has declared that the administration will not tolerate the use of torture but has pressed to retain the use of unspecified "alternative" interrogation methods.

The government argues that once rules are set for the new military commissions, the high-value detainees will have military lawyers and "unprecedented" rights to challenge charges against them in that venue.

U.S. officials say Khan, a Pakistani national who lived in the United States for seven years, took orders from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the man accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mohammed allegedly asked Khan to research poisoning U.S. reservoirs and considered him for an operation to assassinate the Pakistani president.

In a separate court document filed last night, Khan's attorneys offered declarations from Khaled al-Masri, a released detainee who said he was held with Khan in a dingy CIA prison called "the salt pit" in Afghanistan. There, prisoners slept on the floor, wore diapers and were given tainted water that made them vomit, Masri said. American interrogators treated him roughly, he said, and told him he "was in a land where there were no laws."

Khan's family did not learn of his whereabouts until Bush announced his transfer in September, more than three years after he was seized in Pakistan.

The family said Khan was staying with a brother in Karachi, Pakistan, in March 2003 when men, who were not in uniform, burst into the apartment late one night and put hoods over the heads of Khan, his brother Mohammad and his brother's wife. The couple's 1-month-old son was also seized.

Another brother, Mahmood Khan, who has lived in the United States since 1989, said in an interview this week that the four were hustled into police vehicles and taken to an undisclosed location, where they were separated and held in windowless rooms. His sister-in-law and her baby remained together, he said.

According to Mahmood, Mohammad said they were questioned repeatedly by men who identified themselves as members of Pakistan's intelligence service and others who identified themselves as U.S. officials. Mohammad's wife was released after seven days, and he was released after three months, without charge. He was left on a street corner without explanation, Mahmood said.

Periodically, he said, people who identified themselves as Pakistani officials contacted Mohammad and assured him that his brother would soon be released and that they ought not contact a lawyer or speak with the news media.

"We had no way of knowing who had him or where he was," Mahmood Khan said this week at the family home outside Baltimore. He said they complied with the requests because they believed anything else could delay his brother's release.

In Maryland, Khan's family was under constant FBI surveillance from the moment of his arrest, his brother said. The FBI raided their house the day after the arrest , removing computer equipment, papers and videos. Each family member was questioned extensively and shown photographs of terrorism suspects that Mahmood Khan said none of them recognized. For much of the next year, he said, they were followed everywhere.

"Pretty much we were scared," he said. "We live in this country. We have everything here."