2/21 - Sarah Vowell

• Shot at Redemption. Vice President Dick Cheney has acknowledged responsibility in his shooting of fellow hunter Harry Whittingdon on February 11. Cheney said in a February 15 interview on Fox News (transcript on-line here): "Well, ultimately, I'm the guy who pulled the trigger that fired the round that hit Harry. And you can talk about all of the other conditions that existed at the time, but that's the bottom line. And there's no -- it was not Harry's fault. You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. And I say that is something I'll never forget."

• Prison Break. New photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison were broadcast on February 15 by an Australian television network. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on February 16 (on-line here) that the photos related to the same instances disclosed earlier and said that "we've taken a lot of steps since that time to hold people to account and take steps to prevent something like that from happening again."
  Five investigators of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights issued a report on February 16 urging the United States to close down the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay and either bring all detainees to trial or release them. The report is on-line here. The investigators said that they did not visit Guantanamo Bay because they were not to be allowed private interviews or visits with detainees.
  McClellan said on February 16 that "the military treats detainees humanely" and referred to the International Committee for the Red Cross, which he said has been provided full access to the detainees.
  The ICRC itself has taken a position similar to that of the UN investigators, that detainees at Guantanamo should be charged, released, or have their continued detention be governed within a legal framework. The ICRC said in a December 2005 release (on-line here) that it believes that "uncertainty about their fate has added to the mental and emotional strain experienced by many detainees at Guantanamo Bay" and that it is "concerned by the fact that the US authorities have not resolved the questions of their legal status and of the applicable legal framework."
  The United States began holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay in late 2001 and early 2002, and currently has about 490 detainees in Guantanamo Bay. It has released 187 detainees and transferred 80 to other governments in the past four years. The following graph is based on Defense Department news releases and media kits (example: here).
  

• Brother v. Brother. Controversy has surrounded recent reports that President George W. Bush has authorized the National Security Agency to monitor communications involving U.S. persons within the United States without warrants. Bush has defended the program as focused on those communicating with members of al-Qaeda and as effective in fighting terrorism, as in a December 19 appearance where he first discussed the program (on-line here). He has also said that the program was legal and was authorized by his constitutional authority to protect the United States and by a Congressional resolution to use military force against al-Qaeda.
  In explaining why such intercepts were conducted without seeking authorization from a special court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Bush said in a December 19 press conference (on-line here) that the FISA was for "long-term monitoring" and that the intercepts he ordered were to "detect" enemies and to "prevent" new attacks.
  Some have questioned the legal basis for the program. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in a January 5 memo (on-line here) that there is uncertainty about the legal justification for the program and that the justification "does not seem to be as well-grounded" as suggested in a December letter to the heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The American Civil Liberties Union, along with other groups, filed a lawsuit on January 17 challenging the wiretaps as illegal (information on the lawsuit here).
  Some also have questioned the effectiveness of the program. The New York Times reported on January 17 (on-line here) that more than a dozen current and former officials said that the tips provided by the NSA based on its wiretaps did not provide much new information and distracted agents from more productive counterterrorism work. "We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," one former F.B.I. official told the New York Times. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."

• Fuel Me Once. President George W. Bush's February recent speeches about alternative energy from February 20 and 21 are on-line here and here.
  Bush conceded in his February 21 speech that his administration had sent some "mixed signals when it comes to funding" of alternative energy. As noted, jobs at the federal government's National Renewable Energy Laboratory were cut in early February due to budget shortfalls, but were restored after Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman transferred $5 million shortly before Bush's visit to that laboratory (release on-line here). ""I was talking to [NREL director Dan Arvizu] about our mutual desire to clear up any discrepancies in funding, and I think we've cleaned up those discrepancies," Bush said.
  Bush said in his January 31, 2006 State of the Union address that the United States "is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Bush said that improved technology was the "best way to break this addiction" and said that technology could help the United States replace more than 75 percent of oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.
  According to Department of Energy data (on-line here), Persian Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia account for about 20 percent of all U.S. oil imports (with Saudi Arabia alone accounting for about 12-15 percent) and have provided large amounts of oil in the two three decades, with a low point in the 1980s.

posted by Stephen Lee @ 2/22/2006 09:01:00 AM