Eye On U.S.A

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Iran says would consider talks with U.S. on Iraq

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it would consider entering talks with the United States on security in Iraq if it received an official request.

Talks with between Washington and Tehran are expected to be one option for quelling violence in Iraq to be suggested in a report due out from the Iraq Study Group, a U.S. bipartisan commission headed by former secretary of state James Baker.

But the idea has previously been rejected by President Bush. The United States accuses Iran of aiding the insurgency and stoking sectarian strife in Iraq, a charge Tehran denies.

Asked if Iran should talk directly to the United States about security in Iraq, Tehran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said: "If they officially ask for that, it will be reviewed by Iran.

"At the present time, some American and Iraqi officials have raised the question of a dialogue. If we receive such a request we are ready to examine it."

In March, it had looked as though talks between Iran and the United States to stem the bloodshed in Iraq could go ahead, but in April the idea was shot down by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said such negotiations were not needed.

The United States broke ties official ties with Iran after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last month hinted that Washington might join talks with Tehran to resolve the Iran nuclear issue, but only if the Islamic Republic first suspended uranium enrichment, something Iran has repeatedly refused to do.

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Disgraced former US evangelical leader Ted Haggard has confessed to his followers that he was guilty of "sexual immorality".
"I am a deceiver and a liar," Mr Haggard said in a letter - a day after his New Life Church fired him for what it called "sexually immoral conduct".

A vocal opponent of gay marriage, he earlier admitted buying drugs and having a massage from a gay masseur.

But he denied using the methamphetamine or having sex with the man.

"I am so sorry for the circumstances that have caused shame and embarrassment for all of you," Mr Haggard said in the letter that was read out to New Life Church followers in Colorado Springs.

"There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark and I've been warring against it my entire adult life," the letter said.

'Pastor Ted'

The row erupted last week, after Mike Jones told a Colorado radio station that he had been paid to have sex with Mr Haggard nearly every month over the past three years.


Mr Jones said stepped forward because of the gay marriage issue

Mr Haggard denied the claims but said he did receive a massage after being referred to Mr Jones by a Denver hotel.

Mr Haggard, 50, who on Thursday stepped down as the head of the 30m-strong National Association of Evangelicals, also admitted that he bought methamphetamine but "never used it".

The issue is being played out against the backdrop of a vote in Colorado and seven other US states on Tuesday on whether to ban same-sex marriages.

Mr Haggard, who is also known as "Pastor Ted" and has five children, has close contacts with the White House.

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Democrats easily recaptured the House last night and neared control of the Senate , after a bitter midterm election campaign dominated by war, scandal and questions about President Bush's leadership.

In the Montana Senate race, Democratic challenger Jon Tester claimed victory today over Republican incumbent Conrad Burns in Montana. Tester held a 3,000 vote lead over Burns, with a few hundred provisional ballots and results from one small county outstanding.

The result in Montana left the balance of power in the Senate resting on the outcome of the race in Virginia, where former Navy secretary James Webb (D) was ahead of Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) by about 7,000 votes. With a recount possible, a final outcome could take weeks.

Democrats gained Senate seats in Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

In the House, Democrats picked up at least 27 Republican-held seats without losing any of their own, putting Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) into position to become the nation's first female speaker . Several other House races remained too close to call.

Democrats also scored heavily in gubernatorial races, picking up at least seven states to claim a majority nationally.

The upheaval in the House and the changing balance in the Senate signaled a dramatic power shift in Washington that will alter the final two years of Bush's presidency, with resurgent Democrats expected to challenge the administration on its domestic priorities and the Iraq war.

Bush -- who recently equated a vote for Democrats as a vote for terrorists -- telephoned Pelosi and other victorious Democrats early this morning to offer congratulations, invite them to lunch and offer a message that press secretary Tony Snow characterized as "we look forward to working with you."

Pelosi joined other Democratic leaders at a boisterous rally just after midnight and scheduled a news briefing for noon today. She and others in her party hailed the election results as a public demand for a new direction.

"Today the American people voted for change and they voted for Democrats to take our country in a new direction, and that is exactly what we intend to do," she said. "The American people voted for a new direction to restore civility and bipartisanship in Washington, D.C., and Democrats promise to work together in a bipartisan way for all Americans."

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) echoed the call for bipartisanship on NBC's Today show this morning, but he also said Democrats would push to achieve their objectives, including ousting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and finding a new approach to the intractable war in Iraq.

"Doing more of the same and expecting a different result is not a policy," Emmanuel said. "You cannot have a new strategy with the same incompetent management directing it."

Emmanuel said Rumsfeld "has not met the challenges . . . he has put his blindfolds on . . . this is not just Democrats. Secretary Rumsfeld does not have the confidence of either Democrats or Republicans in Congress."

Bush will speak to reporters at a White House news conference at 1 p.m.
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who is part of the Republican House leadership, warned that Bush would face a much more combative environment than during the past six years, when the GOP maintained a majority in the House.

"They're going to be setting the agenda. He's going to be reacting to it," Davis said in an interview on Washington Post Radio. "He's going to be reacting to subpoenas flying, investigations. If we tended to underinvestigate, I think you'll see Democrats tend to overinvestigate."

Davis said the White House should shoulder much of the responsibility for the Republican losses, noting that his own normally wide margin of victory had been whittled to about 12 percentage points and saying the Democratic takeover in the House "could have been worse."

"Republicans margins were down all over the country," Davis said. " . . . Most of this was driven from the White House, not from the Congressional leadership."

Republicans lost almost regardless of their ideology or support for the president. Conservative Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), the most vulnerable incumbent throughout the year, was the first senator to fall, losing to state Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. Not long after, Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine (R), known for working across party lines, fell to Rep. Sherrod Brown after being caught up in the undertow of state GOP scandals, economic woes and the impact of the Iraq war on Buckeye State voters.

Then came Rhode Island, where Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, the son of a beloved former senator and one of the most liberal Republicans in Washington, lost to former attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse in a state where Bush's popularity is among the lowest in the nation.

Early this morning, Missouri state Auditor Claire McCaskill (D) defeated Sen. James M. Talent in one of the year's closest races.

But in Tennessee, Republicans claimed one of the other premier races when former Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker (R) defeated Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. in the election to succeed retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R).

In one of the most-watched Senate races, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who lost the Democratic primary to businessman Ned Lamont because of his support for the war and the president, turned the tables and easily won reelection.

In New York, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) rolled up a big margin as she cruised to a reelection victory that is widely seen as a step toward a presidential campaign in 2008.

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In New Jersey, appointed Sen. Robert Menendez (D) overcame a challenge from state Sen. Thomas H. Kean Jr., robbing Republicans of a seat that not long ago they thought they may be able to win. In Minnesota, a newcomer, Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar, held on to the seat of a retiring Democratic senator. In Maryland, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D) was the winner over Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele in the contest to succeed retiring Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D).

In Massachusetts, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D) won an eighth term. Democrats also held Senate seats in Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. In Vermont, Rep. Bernard Sanders (I) won the seat of retiring Independent Sen. James M. Jeffords.

Democrats picked up a Southern seat when Arkansas Attorney General Mike Beebe defeated Asa Hutchinson for the post of retiring Gov. Mike Huckabee (R). They also added to their impressive strength among governors in the Rocky Mountains when Denver prosecutor Bill Ritter defeated Rep. Bob Beauprez in Colorado.

In Minnesota, incumbent GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty held off a challenge from Democratic Attorney General Mike Hatch and a third-party candidate.

A national exit poll of voters in House races, conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the National Election Pool, showed Democrats carrying independent voters, who emerged this fall as a critically important constituency in the midterm elections, by a wide margin. Meanwhile, about 90 percent of Republicans and Democrats were supporting candidates from their own parties, but independents were siding decisively with Democrats.

The divides that have defined the nation's politics over the past two years shaped yesterday's vote, but those hostile to the Bush administration, unhappy with Congress or pessimistic about the direction of the country far outnumbered those who approve of the performance of Bush and Congress or who think the country is heading in the right direction.

Four in five voters who approve of Bush's performance were supporting Republicans in House races, while an equal number of those who disapprove of his performance were supporting Democrats. But those who disapprove of the way the president has handled his job outnumber those who approve by about three to two.

Voters cited a series of issues that were extremely important in determining their candidate preferences, according to the national exit poll. They were not asked the most important issue affecting their votes.

About four in 10 voters called corruption and scandals in government an important issue and said they were voting heavily for Democratic candidates in the House. Forty percent said that the issue of terrorism was extremely important in their vote and that they were narrowly supporting Republican House candidates.

About four in 10 also cited the economy and said they were backing Democratic House candidates by a wide margin. Iraq, which has dominated much of the fall debate, was another issue that about four in 10 called extremely important in their votes, and they were also heavily backing Democrats.

Immigration reform was an issue that Republicans counted on to help their candidates. The three in 10 who called immigration reform extremely important in determining their votes split in favor of GOP House candidates, but not by as much as Republicans may have hoped. The strongest support for Republican House candidates was from those who cited values issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

Bush voted yesterday morning in Crawford, Tex., then flew back to Washington for a dinner with friends and aides. The group included first lady Laura Bush, White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten, top strategist Karl Rove, counselor Dan Bartlett, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, former commerce secretary Donald L. Evans and Bush friend Brad Freeman. After dinner, they watched election results come in upstairs in the White House residence.

The history of midterm elections put Republicans on the defensive from the start of the campaigns. The sixth year of two-term presidencies often has produced sizable losses and shifts in power in the House or Senate for the party controlling the White House. That was true in 1958, 1974 and 1986.

Dissatisfaction with the war and the administration compounded GOP worries, turning the campaign into a referendum on the president and his Iraq policies.

Bush's ratings began to slump more than a year ago and attitudes hardened after the administration's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. By May of this year, the president's approval rating had plunged to 33 percent in a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Bush has struggled since to break 40 percent, and in the Post-ABC final preelection survey, his approval rating was 40 percent among all Americans and 43 percent among registered voters.

Even those numbers, however, were low by historical standards on the eve of midterm elections. Presidents hovering in the mid-40s or below at that point have seen their parties suffer major setbacks. That was the case for Bill Clinton in 1994, Ronald Reagan in 1982, Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, and Harry S. Truman in 1946 and 1950. Jimmy Carter had an approval rating of 49 percent in 1978 and Democrats lost 15 House seats that year -- precisely the number Democrats needed to gain yesterday to win the House.

At the beginning of September, Bush sought to shift the focus from Iraq to the campaign against terrorism. He used the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to elevate his argument and throughout the campaign portrayed Democrats as weak on fighting terrorism. Most polls, however, showed the public far more focused on Iraq than on terrorism and until the very end expressed greater confidence in Democrats to deal with Iraq.

Unhappiness with the Republican-controlled Congress also contributed to the party's woes throughout most of the fall, with the 109th Congress recording some of the lowest approval ratings of any Congress in a decade.

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The Democrats today claimed the first scalp following their victorious US midterm elections with the resignation of the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
The US president, George Bush, confirmed he had accepted Mr Rumsfeld's resignation and said he had nominated Robert Gates, a former CIA director, to replace him.

Speaking for the first time since midterm elections widely seen as a voter backlash against the handling of the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq, Mr Bush said Mr Rumsfeld had agreed a "fresh perspective" was needed.

"After a series of thoughtful conversations, we have agreed that the time is right for new leadership in the Pentagon," he said in a press conference at the White House.
The president praised Mr Rumsfeld as a "patriot who served this country with honour and distinction" and said he was "deeply grateful for his service".

Senior Democrat figures had wasted no time in renewing calls for the president to sack Mr Rumsfeld, who has overseen the Iraq policy during his six years at the Pentagon.

Mr Bush said there was no question that Iraq had "something to do" with the election results and admitted his policy in the country was "not working well enough, fast enough".

He said Mr Gates - who served as the head of the CIA during his father's administration - would bring "25 years of national security experience" to the role.

The president congratulated the Democrats on a victory which saw them gain control of the House and overturn the Republican majority in the Senate, praising their "superb" and "disciplined" campaign.

He said he shared "a large part of the responsibility" for the Republican defeat, but added he was confident that the Republicans and the Democrats could work together to launch a "new era of cooperation".

"The message yesterday was clear," he said. "The American people want their leaders in Washington to set aside partisan differences."

He also vowed that the US would not leave Iraq "until the job was done".

The White House's announcement that Mr Rumsfeld would be stepping down came shortly after it emerged that the Democrats had won the key state of Montana, erasing the Republican majority in the Senate with just one state left to call.

The Democratic retaking of the House of Representatives broke the long conservative monopoly of power in Washington, clearing the way for congressional investigations into the conduct of the Iraq conflict.

This morning, Mr Bush made the call he must have feared the most - to congratulate the new speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who Republicans turned into a hate figure in the last days of the campaign.

Ms Pelosi, a tough, resoundingly liberal Democratic leader from San Francisco, will become the first woman ever to serve as the speaker of the House, where the Democrats gained 27 seats and were leading on two more.

She will be in a powerful position, appointing the chairs of the all-important House committees - which can launch inquiries and ask difficult questions about the Iraq war and other issues - and will control the legislative agenda in the chamber.

Ms Pelosi and her party will also have a powerful say over taxes and spending.

In theory, the job gives her less sway over foreign policy but, in her victory speech last night, she made it clear she would not be bound by such traditional constraints.

She said the electorate had made it clear that they wanted a "new direction in Iraq".

The future of the Senate still hangs in the balance, with the state of Virginia yet to be decided and lawyers preparing to fight over the outcome.

The Democratic challenger in Virginia, Jim Webb, holds a lead of fewer than 12,000 votes out of 2.3m votes cast. A recount looks likely, which may delay the result for several weeks.

A Republican victory in Virginia would give the US vice president, Dick Cheney, the casting vote in a 50-50 split Senate.

Joe Lieberman, standing as an independent, won the Connecticut race, but has pledged to vote with the Democrats in the new chamber.

Both parties have asked lawyers to prepare to do battle over provisional ballots, absentee ballots, challenges to results from computerised voting machines and every other legal grey area.

The FBI has also opened an investigation into alleged fraud and intimidation of Democratic voters in Virginia.

Elsewhere, the Democrats made Senate gains in Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania.

The party was also celebrating holding the most state governorships since 1994.

Among other milestones last night, Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, became the first socialist in the US Senate, and Deval Patrick was elected governor of Massachusetts, only the second black governor in US history.

Keith Ellison, in Minnesota, became the first Muslim elected to the House of Representatives.

Cooperation between the White House and a Democratic majority in the House would require a sea change in political style on the president's part.

On the basis of the most questionable of mandates in 2000, he governed as though he had won a landslide.

Gay marriage was one of the big losers in the election, with a string of ballot initiatives calling for a ban being passed. In South Dakota, however, a proposal to ban abortion under almost all circumstances was defeated.

Overall, the election continued a long political realignment in the US, leaving the demarcation line between a Republican south and a Democratic north-east and west even more pronounced.

The biggest Republican losses last night were "behind enemy lines" in the liberal east, holdovers from a more bipartisan age.

By that measure, the sharp geographical divide in US politics just got deeper.

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It was like being a kid again, I was waiting for the bending of time and space so Tuesday would come instantly. All day at work I kept looking at the clock waiting and waiting for the seconds to become minutes and the minutes to become hours, all in anticipation of Tuesday's election results.

I did not care if the Republicans lost the House. I did not care if the Republicans lost the Senate. My only concern, desire and hope was for God to intervene in the course of history and produce a victory for James Webb and a defeat for George "I made up the word Maccaca" Allen. More on the historic Webb win later.

I had the chance to attend the last debate between Allen and Webb (incidentally I was one of the only attendees not affiliated with either campaign.) Webb's demeanor was not congruent with that of a former Marine and Vietnam veteran. He was soft spoken and gentle but had a commanding presence and booming voice.

Contrast that with a former football jock, Allen, who passed himself off as a Virginia bred, cowboy boot wearing Southerner. Since the tightening of the race Allen let go of his attachment to the Confederate flag and the noose (the noose that he had hanging in his law office next to his Confederate flag for years.)

Allen reminded me of the all those pompous, jack *** white boy athletes with whom I went to school. In my case the great equalizer was that I could lay them out on the football field so the left me alone. Allen's true background is of a Jewish ancestry and roots in California.

Webb's narrow victory is historic not only in sending a message that Virginia is no longer the lackey of the Conservative Right, it is historic in that it signifies the importance of the Muslim vote in Virginia -- by Muslim I am referring to immigrant Muslim, indigenous Muslims and second/third Generation Muslims. For those of you that are repelled by the word Muslim, it also includes Iranians (secular or not).

Unfortunately, because the immigrant Muslim community (including Iranians) are highly educated and professionals they have historically voted Republican, not to mention that the thought of sitting next to a heshe at a Democratic event does not sit well with our socially conservative norms.

The only reason that a minority should vote for a Republican is if he or she belongs in the Republican tax bracket and can benefit from the tax cuts that the rich so often are afforded. To such fools I say keep voting Republican to save on your taxes; however, no amount of money can save you from being charged as an enemy combatant or help you from getting out of Gitmo.

The other historic message that it sends is to the spineless Democrats that had been paralyzed for five years into grabbing their ankles by the word "terrorism." Had they stood up from the beginning then perhaps the Constitution would not have been shredder. One could put forth a convincing argument that the last five years were merely part of the Democrats agenda; let the situation get so bad that the populous has no choice but to elect them into power.

At least now the Bush Administration won't continue to receive a blank check all under the façade of the war on terror. At least one would hope this to be the case. If it is not, then what choice do we have left? Nader's Green Party?

Two other defeats of magnanimous importance (in lieu of the Iranian nuclear issue) are that of the former Senator Rick Santorum and former Representative Curt Weldon. Apparently regurgitating a story about WMDs in Iraq, that was nearly three years old, was not enough to secure a victory for Santorum.

Weldon, you may remember, wrote a book about the impending danger that Iran posed and that the FBI and CIA were sitting on information that Iran and/or Muslim terrorists were going to attack the US with some type of radio active material or an attack on a nuclear facility or _________ (just fill in the blank.)

Weldon's source was former Iran-Contra figure Manuchehr Ghorbanifar and his buddy "Ali" who is a Shah Loyalist currently residing in Paris. Santorum and Weldon were relying heavily on "Iranian Exiles" when they passed the Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005. Given the power shift in Congress the "Iranian Exiles" need to start puckering up and kissing some new American koon in their hopes of restoring the Monarchy.

[Rasputin]

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is to stand down, after anger over the war in Iraq led to bruising losses for Republicans in mid-term elections.
President George W Bush said that he and Mr Rumsfeld had agreed that a "fresh perspective" was needed in Iraq.

Former CIA Director Robert Gates has been nominated to replace Mr Rumsfeld.

The Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in the polls, and AP news agency says they are also set to take the Senate.

"It's been quite a time," said Mr Rumsfeld in a short departing speech, delivered alongside President Bush, two hours after the president had announced that he would be replaced.

As a key architect of the war in Iraq, Mr Rumsfeld had faced growing calls to quit as violence has continued to spiral, three years after the US-led invasion.




Profile: Robert Gates
Bush diminished as leader
Press reacts to departure
Text of president's speech

"I have benefited greatly from criticism, and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof, " Mr Rumsfeld said, quoting Winston Churchill.

He described the Iraq conflict as a "little understood, unfamiliar war" and said he was confident of ultimate success there.

But BBC News website world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says his resignation is a sign and an admission that the US policy in Iraq has not worked, so far.

Mr Bush described Mr Rumsfeld as a "patriot who served this country with honour and distinction", as well as "a trusted adviser and a friend".

"America is safer and the world is more secure" as a result of Mr Rumsfeld's leadership, he said.

However, Democrats welcomed Mr Rumsfeld's resignation.

"Secretary Rumsfeld's war plans in Iraq have failed. The country is on a dangerous course, and the administration has finally recognised the need for drastic, immediate change," said Senator John Rockefeller, senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Meanwhile the editor-in-chief of the Military Times, a newspaper group which includes four papers which at the weekend called for Mr Rumsfeld's resignation, said Mr Gates' appointment was "promising".

"I think that the change at the top also is a signal to allies that we are going to be perhaps a little more open-minded than we have been in the past," said Tobias Naegele.

Beleaguered

After the 9/11 attacks on America, Mr Rumsfeld led the planning and execution of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the military operation in Iraq two years after that.

As we know, there are known knowns, there are things we know we know - we also know there are known unknowns ...



Donald Rumsfeld in quotes

Popular frustration over the war in Iraq has been a key factor during the current election campaign, and correspondents say Mr Rumsfeld had been looking increasingly beleaguered because of its apparent failures.

Mr Bush announced that Mr Rumsfeld was standing down minutes after the news came that the Democrats had won the Senate race in Montana, one of the two remaining seats needed to wrest control of the upper chamber of Congress from the Republicans.

The US president described as "thumping" the Republicans' setback in the elections, in which the Democrats gained control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years.


The Democrats celebrated major gains in the House and Senate

Mr Gates, 63, will need to be confirmed by the Senate as the new defence secretary. Mr Rumsfeld will continue in his post until then.

Mr Gates served as CIA director for just over a year in the early 1990s, during the presidency of Mr Bush's father.

He is a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which is tasked with recommending ways of tackling the problems the US faces in Iraq.

Mr Gates said he believed the outcome of the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq would "shape our world for decades to come" and pledged to serve "with all my heart".

'Common ground'

The BBC's John Simpson in Baghdad says there will be few tears shed by Iraqis for Mr Rumsfeld, who is identified as the architect of the brutal and dangerous conditions of daily life in the country.

HAVE YOUR SAY
The Republicans needed a scapegoat, so Rummy was it

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He was subjected to unprecedented criticism following revelations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops at Abu Ghraib jail, and he twice offered to resign over the issue.

Resentment has grown further against the US presence in Iraq as violence has spiralled.

Despite a bitter, fiercely fought election campaign, Mr Bush said he was looking forward to working with Democrats.

"If you hold grudges in this line of work, you never get anything done," he said.

He said he would seek to find "common ground" with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who is set to become the first female speaker in the lower chamber.

Earlier she pledged that the Democrats would work with "civility" and "partnership, not partisanship" in their newly empowered position.

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Democrats Take Control of Senate As Allen Concedes to Webb in Va.

Democrat James Webb, who campaigned for Virginia's U.S. Senate seat by opposing the war in Iraq and calling for economic fairness, yesterday succeeded in his improbable bid to unseat Republican George Allen, giving the Democrats a 51-seat majority and control of both houses of Congress.

Webb's lead over Allen widened yesterday in the post-election vote canvass, and Allen graciously conceded to Webb to make the victory official. A short time later, Virginia's newest senator, who lives in Fairfax County, addressed a giddy crowd of hundreds of supporters in front of the Arlington County Courthouse.

His victory ended two days of suspense over which party would control the Senate. Going into Tuesday's election, the Democrats needed six seats for control, and it was Webb, a former Republican and Reagan administration official, who gave them the sixth seat.

"It is Virginia that turned the Senate blue," Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) told the cheering crowd.

Webb will take his place in a Congress in which Democrats will control both houses for the first time in 12 years.

"Mark Warner began a journey. Tim Kaine added on to it," a triumphant Webb said, referring to the state's back-to-back Democratic governors. "We are going to add on to it even more."

Webb said that Allen called him to concede and that the two former adversaries would have lunch next week. He called the campaign "unnecessarily brutal" and said he would talk to Allen about how they can help stop "the politics of divisiveness, character assassination, distraction."

A decorated former Marine with a son serving in Iraq, Webb wore combat boots throughout the campaign as a symbol of his early criticism of the conflict. Before speaking in Arlington, Webb took off the boots and held them in the air, delighting the crowd. He promised a new approach to the war that he said will lead to a diplomatic solution.

He also said, "We are going to work very hard on issues of economic fairness in a country that has become too divided by class."

Webb will join Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) in the Senate, where he will likely become a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a spokesman against the war with substantial credentials. Warner and Webb are part of a small fraternity, having both served as secretary of the Navy.

Webb, 60, was a Republican for most of his life and for a time served under the godfather of the modern GOP, President Ronald Reagan. But his election to the Senate delivered a final blow to the Republican Party.

"We will begin the process of putting this country back on the track where it needs to be," Webb said at yesterday's rally.

[Rasputin]

Giddy as Mikado schoolgirls, Democrats and their allies on the left are positively gushing over their election gains of November 7. In the US' two-party duopoly, voters are restricted to shifting power from one side to the other to voice their dissatisfaction with government. And, to be fair, voters did their part, kicking out congressmen, senators and governors from coast to coast.

But hopes that this shift will lead to real changes in policy are, as Cosmo Kramer might say, "kooky talk." Everybody can enjoy the sight of a bully getting whooped, and the drubbing last Tuesday did indeed provide some emotional solace for those who thought Bush and his cronies could get away with anything at all. Still, this moment of schadenfreude gives way to more fundamental questions as it becomes clear that the torch has been passed from one side of the War Party to the other.

Liberal friends of mine remind me of the importance of such things as committee assignments in shaping the mechanics of wielding of power in Washington. I remind them, of course, that any populist resurgence has always come despite, not because of, the party in power.

Still skeptical of my skepticism, they force me to offer as evidence my own list of what will not happen in the wake of the Democrat takeover of congress. The troops will not come home from Iraq. Democratic Party victory architect Rahm Emmanuel spend considerable energy to ensure a largely prowar congress, and despite a vocal minority (and the will of the people), there will be no quick end to the Iraq occupation, and war party leaders and enthusiasts will dither over definitions of "timetables" and "benchmarks" for years to come.

Moreover, party leaders will put increasing pressure on so- called "progressive" democrats not to seem "irresponsible" in pushing for a quick withdrawal. Echoing Bush, they will concoct some "responsible" version of the pledge to "stay until the job is done." It's not for nothing that the original war resolution in the fall of 2002 was passed by a Democrat-controlled Senate.

Nor should the antiwar movement expect much help from the Democrats in preventing the insanity of attacking Iran. The slow drumbeat has begun, just as it did with Iraq, to manipulate public opinion and convince the US public that it is in our interest to engage in more senseless military adventurism. Barak Obama, the current darling of many progressive democrats, said in an interview at the time of the party's national convention in Boston that military action against Iran has to remain on the table.

A resolution aimed at preventing just that was proposed in the House on June 20 of this year. The bill was aimed at preemptively closing the cash register on attacking Iran: no appropriation, the theory goes, no war. Gaining 158 votes, the resolution was far short of approval. Given the eagerness of the Democrats' leadership to work in a bipartisan matter, it is doubtful that the remaining 75 or so votes to ensure passage in the new congress would be forthcoming without massive pressure from below.

Speaker-in-waiting Nancy Pelosi has said categorically that "impeachment is off the table," claiming that democrats "are not about getting even." Typical of backroom, backslapping, backward leadership, this notion implies that political gamesmanship is the nexus of congressional oversight, not the rule of law and protecting the constitution from abuse by the executive.

The war criminals of the administration will be allowed to take their chips off the table and go home, without accountability, without consequence, and with their pensions and freedoms intact after lying the country into a senseless and destructive war. Again, there is some glee in watching Ol' Rummy's departure; but letting Rumsfeld quit to start drawing his pension is a bit like letting Dr. Mengele just move to a new clinic.

Corporate money will not significantly be challenged, and will continue to control nearly all aspects of US life, especially when it comes to elections. Those who think otherwise haven't taken a peek at Democrats' balance sheets, which are as loaded with corporate campaign cash as their counterparts in the GOP. Meager reforms will leave the system almost entirely intact, and with the Democrats' imprimatur, it will cease to be an issue for the "left." As far as clean or open elections go, forget about it. Once the Democrats realize they can win, they won't have any sympathy for other political points of view trying to muscle in on their territory. In fact, they'll have less.

No one in the party leadership will convincingly challenge the sickeningly bloated war budget. I should probably have mentioned this first, since it is the kingpin of any people-oriented social agenda that may be on people's minds. As with the "mismanaging the war" critique, attacks on the biggest pork barrel in world history will be muted and targeted to appeal to the amorphous center scared to death by warmongering propaganda.

We will be lectured that spending "smart" is better than spending more, and outrageously useless programs will be level-funded, have their toenails clipped, or actually have their funding increased. Again, self-described progressives will be redbaited from within their own party, and be told that their suggestions to spend less on defense than all other nations combined is counterproductive and "soft on security." Nothing else will change because, once the agenda has been reduced to squabbling over the scraps left over from the Pentagon's trillions, there's not much to talk about anyway.

It may go without saying, which is sad enough by itself, but there will be no groundswell among the political elites in favor of Palestinian human rights. Pelosi, who has dismissed the notion that the occupation may drive the conflict as "nonsense," certainly won't contribute to new thinking in this regard. Stuck in the worldview where Palestinians, instead of having real grievances, are simply another bunch of ragheads who just love to hate Jews, democrats' leadership will bring the US no closer to exiting the international doghouse. As Israeli planes buzz international positions in Lebanon and shell civilians in Beit Hanoun, most Democrats, like their Republican cohorts, will remain indefensibly, and criminally, silent.

I wish it were not so, and wish there were a high likelihood of history proving me wrong on any of these points. For those who ask how this can be, I can only quote Kramer again: "Oh, it be!" Call me a wet blanket. Call me late for dinner. But there are many who can read this list and agree with almost everything on it, and still hold out hope for change from the Democrats. I call that delusional.

© 2006 Daniel Patrick Welch. Reprint permission granted with credit and link to http://danielpwelch.com. Writer, singer, linguist and activist Daniel Patrick Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, with his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they run The Greenhouse School http://www.greenhouseschool.org. Translations of articles are available in up to 20 languages. Links to the website are appreciated at http://danielpwelch.com.

[Rasputin]

Democrats back Pelosi to be House speaker

A week after winning control of the U.S. Congress, Democrats on Thursday unanimously elected Nancy Pelosi, a California liberal, as their nominee to lead the chamber as its first woman speaker. But they faced a divisive showdown in another leadership race.

Democrats were to decide later in the day whether to back Pelosi's choice of a former soldier and leading Iraq war opponent, John Murtha, as House Democratic leader, or her longtime deputy, Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

Pelosi, who has served as House Democratic leader since 2003, has had a somewhat strained relationship with Hoyer, a moderate.

The full House will formally elect a speaker when it convenes in January under control of the Democrats for the first time in 12 years. Pelosi is certain to win.

Murtha, of Pennsylvania, helped lead the charge against the Iraq war that helped Democrats win control Congress, drawing the appreciation of virtually all members.

Yet some Democrats were concerned about his record on congressional ethics and opposition to proposed reforms.

[Rasputin]

As Pressure for Talks Grows, Iran and Syria Gain Leverage

The White House is under growing pressure to talk to Iran and Syria to help stabilize Iraq, but mounting violence in Iraq and the Bush administration's political woes give the negotiating edge to Tehran and Damascus and complicate any U.S. outreach, experts say.

The idea of talks is widely expected to be on the list of proposals that will come out of the Iraq Study Group report next month, because co-chairman and former secretary of state James A. Baker III and other members back engaging enemies as well as allies. British Prime Minister Tony Blair this week endorsed talking with Tehran and Damascus, with caveats. The CIA director and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said yesterday that talks could help. And an array of experts has encouraged the administration to reach out to the countries that have meddled most in Iraq.

But the Bush administration is already questioning the idea, and even supporters admit that full cooperation by both Iran and Syria may have little impact on the many-sided insurgency. Neither country has much sway over Iraq's Sunnis or the al-Qaeda branch in Iraq, as both are ruled by Shiites or Shiite offshoots.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling yesterday to a conference in Vietnam, said that she is prepared to talk to "anybody, anywhere, anytime" under circumstances in which she believed progress was really possible. "I'm not afraid to talk to anyone," she told reporters. But she dismissed the idea that diplomacy offers any "magic bullets" for Iraq.

The United States has made multiple overtures to Tehran, particularly related to its controversial nuclear program. A year ago, Rice told Congress that Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, had been empowered to talk to his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad on Iraq.

"There's no lack of opportunity to talk to the Iranians," she told reporters. "The question is: Is there anything about Iranian behavior that suggests that they are prepared to contribute to stability in Iraq? And I have to say that at this point I don't see it."

Syria has given no indication that it is willing to be a stabilizing force anywhere in the region, including in Iraq, Lebanon and the Arab-Israeli dispute, she added. President Bashar al-Assad's government has "aligned itself with the forces of extremism," she said.

In a briefing Wednesday aboard Air Force One en route to Singapore, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley all but rejected the idea. "What we need is less talk and more action by Iran," he said.

But experts on both sides of the Iraq debate argue that after decades of tension with both countries, Iran and Syria now have a common interest with the United States in preventing further turmoil in Iraq. "We've gone past the point of being desirable. It's absolutely necessary to talk to them," said Joseph Cirincione, vice president of the Center for American Progress.

Iran fears the spillover of Iraq's political problems on its own large Kurdish, Sunni and Arab minorities in the event of a full-scale civil war. It also was burdened with a refugee problem as more than 2 million people fled wars in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan.

Syria is also looking for a way out of its isolation. And it fears that Kurdish separatism in Iraq would influence its own restive Kurdish population, said Theodore H. Kattouf, former U.S. ambassador to Syria.

"They have some hardheaded reasons to want to coordinate with us to make sure that our withdrawal, which they want, is not precipitous," said Geoffrey Kemp, a Reagan administration National Security Council staffer.

[Rasputin]

Tehran and Washington have been living through a diplomatic ice age. They have not been talking for the past 27 years.

But on Wednesday, giving evidence before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Ambassador David Satterfield - Condoleezza Rice's senior advisor on Iraq - appeared to signal a change.

He said the US was "prepared in principle to discuss Iranian activities in Iraq".

The US under secretary of state had earlier told me that such talks were "not beyond the realms of possibility."

So is the thaw about to begin?

Troubled history

Relations have been in deep freeze ever since the US embassy hostage crises in 1979.

It is the open sore that has never healed - the cloud that hangs over every attempt to renew diplomatic links.


Iran cast the US as the "Great Satan" after its Islamic revolution
The Iranian revolution cast the US as the "Great Satan."

More than a quarter of a century later the Bush administration labelled Iran as one of the greatest threats to world peace. Not much hope of reconciliation.

Despite their poisoned history some politicians in both Washington and Tehran have tried to bridge the divide.

Most recently Iranian and US officials talked with each other about the formation of a new government in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban.

If it was a sign of a diplomatic breakthrough, it was very short-lived.

Any goodwill quickly evaporated when President Bush in 2002 described Iran as part of the "axis of evil."

So far it is the hardliners on both sides who have held sway.

Reason to talk

But America's troubles in Iraq have given the US a new reason to talk.

Iran stands accused of fuelling the sectarian divide - of supplying arms and bomb-making equipment to Iraq's Shia militia and insurgents.


The US has signalled Iran it wants to talk about security in Iraq
Earlier this year, state department officials signalled that they wanted direct talks to discuss Iran's "unhelpful behaviour."

Feelers were put out through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran which acts as an intermediary.

Iran too at first seemed receptive to the idea.

But the US says Tehran muddied the waters by suggesting this would be a venue to discuss "other issues" - namely Iran's nuclear programme. The trail once again went cold.

Growing pressure

But the pressure on the Bush administration continues to grow.

First from two of America's strongest allies - Britain and Australia.

Second from the Iraq Study Group led by the former secretary of state James Baker.

He has already said that he does not consider talking to your enemies as "appeasement."

The Iraq Study Group has yet to publish its findings, but the commission could well advocate renewed attempts to engage with both Iran and Syria.


Iran says it wants a change in US attitude before any talks over Iraq
Any optimism of talks taking place has to be countered by America's efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear programme.

A senior state department official explained to me why the talks had as yet not materialised.

First, he said that earlier this year the US did not want to be in a position of negotiating over the heads of a new Iraqi government.

Second, the US did not want to bargain over Iraq's security with the nuclear issue.

The truth is that there is still little appetite among senior US officials for direct talks while Iran continues to enrich uranium.

They argue that Condoleezza Rice has already announced a major shift in policy by offering to sit down with Iran if it suspends those activities.

American diplomats believe it is now Iran's turn to make concessions.

That is why there is still the question of timing. But the US may soon be forced to swallow its pride if it wants Iran's help to stabilise Iraq.

[Rasputin]

Rising price of the war on terror

Whether troop levels increase in coming months, or decrease, or stay the same, one aspect of the US military effort in Iraq is unlikely to change: It will be expensive.
The cost of combat in Iraq has now surpassed $300 billion, according to government estimates. Add in activities in Afghanistan, and the total price of the global war on terror is about $500 billion, making it one of the most monetarily costly conflicts in which the nation has ever engaged.

Now the Department of Defense is in the process of drawing up its follow-on request for the remainder of FY 2007. Reports indicate that the Pentagon could ask for $120 billion to $160 billion, which would be its largest funding request yet for the global war on terror.

After they take control of Congress next year, Democrats will almost certainly investigate both the rate of Iraq spending and the manner in which it has been appropriated. Much of the war has been funded through supplementals, so-called emergency bills whose use in this case has become increasingly controversial in Congress.

"We're now at $507 billion for the global war on terror and counting, and almost all of that has been pushed through a process that doesn't give proper scrutiny to the budget. Are we spending it wisely?" says Gordon Adams, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center who was the senior White House official for national security budgets under President Clinton.

Last month, Congress approved $70 billion in spending intended to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the first six months of fiscal 2007, which began Oct. 1 for the US government.

The size of the request under discussion reflects both the continued nature of the mission and past wear-and-tear. Both the Army and the Air Force need billions to replace expensive hardware worn out by the pace of warfare in Iraq.

Before the invasion of Iraq, the White House estimated that combat operations there would cost about $50 billion. That forecast, however, was based on a quick end to the war and a rapid drawdown of US troops.

Three years later, Iraq alone is costing the US some $8 billion a month.

Estimates of total spending vary, due to the fact that Department of Defense records on obligations do not provide comprehensive specifics, and the supplemental bills voted by Congress do not have the line-item details of regular sending bills.

Congressional Research Service figures puts the cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other war-on-terror activities at $507 billion. Of that, the Afghan campaign has cost at least $88 billion, according to CRS. Iraq accounts for the bulk of the rest.

The drain of continued fighting in Iraq has meant that the global war on terror has steadily moved up the list of the most costly conflicts in US history (in terms of money, not casualties). In 2005, it passed the Korean war's inflation-adjusted cost of $361 billion.

Next year it will almost certainly pass the Vietnam War's $531 billion, making it the second most expensive US war ever, behind World War II.

Given the uncertainty of troop levels, it is very difficult to estimate the US military's future costs in Iraq.

Overall, each individual soldier deployed in Iraq for a year costs about $275,000, according to CRS. The cost rises to $360,000 if required additional investments in equipment and facilities are added.

Using a scenario in which US troop levels fall to 73,000 by 2010, and then stay at that level, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cumulative cost of the global war on terror could reach $808 billion by 2016.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the Bush administration have continued the practice by which funding for the war on terror is requested in the form of supplemental appropriations. Supplementals are prepared much closer to the time when the money will actually be spent. The Vietnam War, for instance, was funded via supplementals at its outset. Later, Vietnam costs were folded into the regular budget process.

Supplementals provide much less detail as to where money will be spent than do regular budget documents, and receive less congressional oversight than do regular budget bills.

So far, the White House has shown little inclination to fund Iraq and Afghanistan via the regular budget, despite some pressure from Congress to do so. In addition, the nature of items paid for via these war spending bills may have begun to expand, to include items related to peacetime missions as well.

A Democratic-controlled Congress will almost certainly look for ways to increase pressure on the White House to abandon the flexibility and opaqueness of the emergency bill approach.