Former CIA Director George Tenet is racing to complete his memoir which is due out this spring. “Tenet is not expected to take on [President] Bush, with whom he developed a close bond during early morning intelligence briefings in the Oval Office.” A former colleague said, “In order to sell books he’s going to have to throw somebody out of the lifeboat.”
63 percent: Number of Americans who want all U.S. troops home from Iraq by the end of 2008, according to a new USA Today poll. A CBS poll shows that 63 percent of the public also disapprove of the President’s plan to send more troops to Iraq.
One year has passed since Sunni insurgents “ripped a hole in the glorious dome” of the Samarra mosque (photo), “one of Iraq’s most sacred Shiite shrines.” The New York Times reports, “Not a single brick of the mosque has been moved since. There has been no rebuilding and no healing; the million annual pilgrims, and the prosperity they spread, are gone.”
The House is set to consider legislation that would “place strict ethics limits on executive-branch officials.” Among numerous reforms, the bill requires officials “to report all significant contacts they have with any private interest related to an official government action,” a response to the secrecy surrounding Vice President Cheney’s energy task force.
“Iran will be able to develop enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear bomb and there is little that can be done to prevent it, an internal European Union document has concluded.”
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said yesterday that he is “very concerned about the possibility of a, quote, ‘Tet Offensive’” that might “switch American public opinion the way that the Tet Offensive did” during Vietnam. Note to McCain: more than two-thirds of Americans already oppose the war.
Today, Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ) plan to introduce a bill to restore habeas corpus protections to Guantanamo Bay detainees, effectively reversing provisions of President Bush’s Military Commissions Act passed last year. The bill would also create an independent court review to military commission rulings and and bar information obtained through torture.
“In the absence of federal action,” and at odds with a Bush budget that cuts assistance to states, “governors and state legislators around the country are transforming the nation’s health care system, putting affordable health insurance within reach of millions of Americans in hopes of reversing the steady rise in the number of uninsured, now close to 47 million.”
And finally: Arm the frickin’ laser beams. “Dozens of dolphins and sea lions trained to detect and apprehend waterborne attackers could be sent to patrol a military base in Washington state, the Navy said Monday.”
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