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6Dec/10Off

Iran talks: Strong rhetoric, low expectations

GENEVA -Iran and six world powers are heading into negotiations about the country's nuclear program Monday with low expectations, at odds on what to talk about and with tensions high over the assassination of one of Tehran's most prominent scientists.
The talks in Geneva — the first in over a year — are meant to ease concerns over Iran's nuclear agenda. Tehran says it does not want atomic arms, but as it builds on its capacity to make such weapons, neither Israel nor the U.S. have ruled out military action if Tehran fails to heed U.N. Security Council demands to freeze key nuclear programs.
Iran's bold stance was highlighted Sunday, when it announced it had delivered its first domestically mined raw uranium to a processing facility, claiming it is now self-sufficient over the entire nuclear fuel cycle.
A senior diplomat in Vienna who is familiar with the issue said the move was expected and mainly symbolic. Still, the timing of the announcement was significant in signaling just a day ahead of the Geneva talks that Tehran was unlikely to meet international demands that it curb its nuclear activities.
Over two planned days, Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, will meet with EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, with Ashton's office saying she will act "on behalf" of the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany. In fact, senior officials for those six powers will attend and do much of the talking with Tehran.
Chances of meaningful progress were low even before the assassination late last month of a prominent nuclear scientist and the wounding of another further clouded hopes of success at the talks.
Jalili called the killing a "disgrace" for the Security Council on Saturday, claiming the attacks were linked to efforts to implement international sanctions. He did not elaborate.
Still, the expected presence of Ali Bagheri reflects the importance Iran attaches to the meeting. Officials familiar with the composition of the Iranian delegation say Bagheri has a direct line to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Western officials urged Tehran to meet international concerns about its nuclear activities.
Invoking possible military confrontation over Iran's nuclear defiance, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said Saturday that the Geneva talks need to make a serious start toward resolving the issue.
"We want a negotiated solution, not a military one — but Iran needs to work with us to achieve that outcome," he said. "We will not look away or back down."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it was up to Iran to restore trust about its nuclear intentions, urging it to come to Geneva prepared to "firmly, conclusively reject the pursuit of nuclear weapons."
But for Iran the main issues are peace, prosperity — and nuclear topics only in the context of global disarmament.
"Iran has not and will not allow anybody in the talks to withdraw one iota of the rights of the Iranian nation," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said before the scheduled talks, warning the other nations at the table to "put aside the devil's temper" and negotiate in good faith.
Expectations are suitably low, even allowing for the fact that both sides are likely talking tough going into the talks with the purpose of maximizing their starting negotiating positions.
Glyn Davies, the chief U.S. delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the talks were meant to shape conditions for "a new start," even while insisting that Iran's nuclear program "has to be first and foremost on the agenda."
Other officials from the four Western nations coming to the table acknowledge that the six powers are coming without a firm agenda. One of them used freestyle wrestling as an analogy of what to expect.
"Think of this as a sort of catch-as-catch can," said the official, a senior diplomat who asked for anonymity because he was briefing The Associated Press on privileged information. "I don't think we are going to get into any kind of substantive discussions — the best we can hope for is a second round of meetings."
Such caution is understandable.
The last Geneva meeting of the seven nations in October 2009 appeared to put Iran nuclear talks back on track after a four-year hiatus, but Tehran and the six powers began to quibble about what was agreed on only days after they ended.
Iran initially seemed to accept a plan to export 75 percent of its low-enriched uranium to be made into special fuel for a Tehran reactor making medical materials — a move that would have stripped it of much of the material it then had stockpiled that could have been turned into a bomb.
But it then started putting conditions on the deal, which unraveled, deepening mistrust between the two sides.
A fourth set of U.N. Security Council sanctions because of Tehran's continued expansion of uranium enrichment has further burdened relations.
Nations have a right to enrich domestically and Iran insists it is doing so only to make fuel for an envisaged network of reactors and not to make fissile warhead material. But international concerns are strong because Tehran developed its enrichment program clandestinely and because it refuses to cooperate with an IAEA probe meant to follow up on suspicions that it experimented with components of a nuclear weapons program — something Iran denies.

Iran talks: Strong rhetoric, low expectations

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19Nov/10Off

US-Russian ‘reset’ in trouble as nuke pact stalls

MOSCOW -Is the reset on the rocks?
Rumblings in Washington by the resurgent Republican Party against Senate ratification of the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty raise doubts about a fragile U.S.-Russian rapprochement — the "reset" that has been a centerpiece of President Obama's diplomacy.
An unraveling of ties, which hit post-Cold War lows during the administration of George W. Bush, would erode global stability at a time of burgeoning security threats and harm international efforts to stem the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
New START bolstered mutual trust, helping Washington win crucial Kremlin backing for a new set of sanctions against Iran and stronger support for the war in Afghanistan.
"The failure to ratify the treaty will deal a very painful blow to Obama's administration and the policy of `reset,'" said Sergei Rogov, head of the Moscow-based U.S.A. and Canada Institute, a top think-tank advising the government on foreign policy.
If "the administration can't deliver what it promised, it would seriously undermine Obama's position in the international arena."
The Russian Foreign Ministry sought to play down a statement from Sen. Jon Kyl, a leading Republican, who spoke against holding a ratification vote this year. But it warned that the process should go forward in both countries at the same time.
Obama on Thursday urged the Senate to ratify the treaty, appearing at the White House with former secretaries of state and defense of both parties who all support it.
"This is not about politics," he said. "It's about national security."
Some Kremlin-connected legislators and political pundits said Senate failure to ratify the agreement would likely push Moscow to rethink its relationship with the United States.
Mikhail Margelov, head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, said Moscow may reconsider its stance on Iran and Afghanistan if the treaty fails.
"We should agree with Vice President Joe Biden who fears that due to procrastinations with the ratification, the United States may lose Moscow's vital support in tackling the problem of Iran and in the war in Afghanistan," Margelov was quoted in Russian news reports as saying. "The continuation of `reset' that envisages the development of partnership on security issues hinges on the treaty's ratification."
Moscow backed the latest set of U.N. sanctions against Iran in June and later shelved a 2007 contract to supply Iran with sophisticated S-300 air defense missile systems that drew strong U.S. and Israeli concerns. The moves angered Tehran, which accused Moscow of kowtowing to the West.
The Kremlin also has offered stronger support for NATO operations in Afghanistan, allowing the alliance to carry supplies across the Russian territory. A Russia-NATO summit in Lisbon this weekend is expected to see the signing of a new deal on the so-called "reverse" transit that would allow NATO to ship cargo back from Afghanistan.
Rogov said Russia would be unlikely to backtrack on its moves regarding Iran and Afghanistan, even if the Senate fails to seal the arms deal, but that it would close the door to any further friendly action.
"It's not that we will turn back, but any further moves toward cooperation will be unlikely," he told The Associated Press.
Dmitry Trenin, head of the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office, said Russia will continue to cooperate with Obama, but show more caution. "The relations will be stable and businesslike, but limited in depth and scope," he said.
The nuclear arms deal signed in April by Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would reduce strategic warheads to 1,550 for each country from the current ceiling of 2,200 and restore onsite inspections and other verification measures that ceased when the previous START treaty expired nearly a year ago.
Trenin said that the unraveling of arms control would erode stability.
"It's always dangerous to have nuclear arsenals of two major powers develop without proper information exchange," he said. "That would reduce the level of predictability."
Rogov warned that the termination of inspections would prompt each country to overestimate the other's potential, as happened during the Cold War. "If on-the-ground inspections aren't restored, both the U.S. and Russia will have to proceed from the worst-case scenario as they did before the first arms control agreements were reached in the early 1970s," he said.
Rogov and other observers also warned that failure to put New START into force would ruin hopes for global nuclear disarmament and encourage the spread of atomic weapons.
"The world is no longer bipolar, and the collapse of the U.S.-Russian arms control mechanism will turn the multipolar world into multipolar chaos, as no one else would be able to persuade other nuclear powers to accept at least some rules of the game," Rogov said. "The consequences of the New START collapse could be extremely grave."
Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policies that includes some of Russia's top political and military analysts, said that if the treaty fails in the Senate, Obama and Medvedev might agree to implement its provisions by executive orders. He added, however, that many in Russian officialdom would likely oppose that, arguing it would make no sense to fulfill the deal at a time when the U.S. policy may change soon.
Some said the arms treaty's collapse would play into the hands of hawks in the Russian government and weaken Medvedev, who has pushed for better ties with the U.S.
"It will raise doubts about the `reset' and undermine positions of Medvedev who placed his bets on that," said Sergei Markov, a leading lawmaker with the ruling United Russia party led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

US-Russian 'reset' in trouble as nuke pact stalls

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12Nov/10Off

High court allows gay military ban for now

WASHINGTON -The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the Pentagon to continue preventing openly gay people from serving in the military while a federal appeals court reviews the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
The court did not comment in denying a request from the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, to step into the ongoing federal court review of "don't ask, don't tell." The Obama administration urged the high court not to get involved at this point.
Last month, a federal judge ruled that the policy violates the civil rights of gay Americans and she issued an injunction barring the Pentagon from applying it. But the San Francisco-based appeals court said the policy could remain in effect while it considers the administration's appeal.
"Log Cabin Republicans are disappointed that the Supreme Court decided to maintain the status quo with regards to 'don't ask, don't tell,' but we are not surprised," said R. Clarke Cooper, the group's executive director. "We are committed to pursuing every avenue in the fight against this failed and unconstitutional policy."
President Barack Obama has pledged to push lawmakers to repeal the law in the lame-duck session before a new Congress is sworn in. But administration lawyers have in the meantime defended "don't ask, don't tell" in court.
The policy, which prohibits gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, was lifted for eight days in October after U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips ruled that it is unconstitutional. The Obama administration asked the appeals court to reinstate the ban until it could hear arguments on the broader constitutional issues next year.
Justice Elena Kagan did not take part in the court's consideration of the issue. Kagan served as the administration's chief Supreme Court lawyer before she became a justice in August.
—
Associated Press writer Julie Watson in San Diego contributed to this report.

High court allows gay military ban for now

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23Oct/10Off

Files: Iraqi deaths higher than US count

WASHINGTON -Military documents laid bare in the biggest leak of secret information in U.S. history suggest that far more Iraqis died than previously acknowledged during the years of sectarian bloodletting and criminal violence unleashed by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
The accounts of civilian deaths among nearly 400,000 purported Iraq war logs released Friday by the WikiLeaks website include deaths unknown or unreported before now — as many as 15,000 by the count of one independent research group.
The field reports from U.S. forces and intelligence officers also indicate U.S. forces often failed to follow up on credible evidence that Iraqi forces mistreated, tortured and killed their captives as they battled a violent insurgency.
The war logs were made public in defiance of Pentagon insistence that the action puts the lives of U.S. troops and their military partners at risk.
Although the documents appear to be authentic, their origin could not be independently confirmed, and WikiLeaks declined to offer any details about them.
The 391,831 documents date from the start of 2004 to Jan. 1, 2010, providing a ground-level view of the war written mostly by low-ranking officers in the field. The dry reports, full of military jargon and acronyms, were meant to catalog "significant actions" over six years of heavy U.S. and allied military presence in Iraq.
The Pentagon has previously declined to confirm the authenticity of WikiLeaks-released records, but it has employed more than 100 U.S. analysts to review what was previously released and has never indicated that any past WikiLeaks releases were inaccurate.
Casualty figures in the U.S.-led war in Iraq have been hotly disputed because of the high political stakes in a conflict opposed by many countries and a large portion of the American public. Critics on each side of the divide accuse the other of manipulating the death toll to sway opinion.
Iraq Body Count, a private British-based group that has tracked the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the war began, said it had analyzed the information and found 15,000 previously unreported deaths, which would raise its total from as many as 107,369 civilians to more than 122,000 civilians.
It said most of the newly disclosed deaths included targeted assassinations, drive-by shootings, torture, executions and checkpoint killings.
Al-Jazeera, one of several news organizations provided advance access to the WikiLeaks trove, reported the documents show 285,000 recorded casualties, including at least 109,000 deaths. Of those who died 66,000, nearly two-thirds of the total, were civilians.
The Iraqi government has issued a tally claiming at least 85,694 deaths of civilians and security officials were killed between January 2004 and Oct. 31, 2008.
In July of this year, the U.S. military quietly released its most detailed tally to date of the deaths of Iraqi civilians and security forces in the bloodiest years of the war.
That U.S. body count, reported by The Associated Press this month, tallied deaths of almost 77,000 Iraqis between January 2004 and August 2008 — the darkest chapter of Iraq's sectarian warfare and the U.S. troop surge to quell it. The new data was posted on the U.S. Central Command website without explanation.
In August 2008, the Congressional Research Service said the U.S. military was withholding statistics on Iraqi civilian deaths. The Pentagon did publish in June 2008 a chart on civilian death trends by month that showed it peaking at between 3,500 and 4,000 in December 2006. But it did not release the data used to create the chart.
In 2006 and 2007, the Bush administration and military commanders often played down the extent of civilian killings from revenge killings, blood feuds and mob-style violence in Iraq, much of which had no direct effect on U.S. forces.
Administration figures repeatedly denied Iraq was sliding into civil war. The war did not begin to turn around in a lasting way until the 2007 "surge" of U.S. troops and the decision of key Sunni leaders to cut ties with the foreign-led al-Qaida terror group.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell called the release of the Iraq war material by WikiLeaks "shameful" and said it "could potentially undermine our nation's security."
"The biggest potential damage here, we think, could be to our forces," he said, "because there are now potentially 400,000 documents in the public domain for our enemies to mine, look for vulnerabilities, patterns of behavior, things they could exploit to wage attacks against us in the future."
He said that about 300 Iraqis mentioned in the documents are "particularly vulnerable to reprisal attacks" because of the documents' release and that U.S. forces in Iraq are trying to protect them.
The deputy minister for the Iraqi justice ministry, Busho Ibrahim, said he hadn't read the WikiLeaks documents but denied any abuse had taken place in Iraqi-run prisons.
WikiLeaks gave the AP a censored version of the files, with some names of people, countries and groups redacted. Fuller versions were offered to other news outlets ahead of time, according to a WikiLeaks member at London's Frontline Club, where a handful of journalists was given last-minute access before the war logs were released more widely.
WikiLeaks declined to make the less-redacted files available to the AP, saying journalists wanting such a copy would have to lodge a request with the organization, which would respond within a "couple of days." Asked why, a spokesman for the group who identified himself only as "Joseph" hung up the phone. Asked again when he appeared at the Frontline Club, he said: "I just can't answer any more questions."
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did not return an e-mail seeking comment.
It was not immediately clear whether WikiLeaks released all the military records in its possession. In some cases, names and other pieces of identifying information appeared to have been redacted but it was unclear to what extent WikiLeaks withheld names in response to Pentagon concerns that people could become targets of retribution.
Allegations of torture and brutality by Shiite-dominated security forces — mostly against Sunni prisoners — were widely reported during the most violent years of the war, when the rival Islamic sects turned on one another in Baghdad and other cities. The leaked documents provide a ground's-eye view of abuses as reported by U.S. military personnel to their superiors and appear to corroborate much of the past reporting on such incidents.
—
Associated Press writers Raphael G. Satter and Michael Weissenstein in London, Kim Gamel in Cairo, Lynn Dombek in New York and Bushra Juhi in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Files: Iraqi deaths higher than US count

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17Oct/10Off

As Democrats’ message lags, GOP awaits huge wins

WASHINGTON -Two weeks before Election Day, Democrats fear their grip on the House may be gone, and Republicans are poised to celebrate big gains in the Senate and governors' mansions as well.
Analysts in both parties say all major indicators tilt toward the Republicans. President Barack Obama's policies are widely unpopular. Congress, run by the Democrats, rates even lower. Fear and anger over unemployment and deep deficits are energizing conservative voters; liberals are demoralized.
Private groups are pouring huge sums of money into GOP campaigns. An almost dizzying series of Democratic messages has failed to gain traction, forcing Obama to zigzag in search of a winning formula.
At a Democratic rally in Boston on Saturday, Obama acknowledged that the enthusiasm of his presidential run two years ago may have faded in the face the country's economic problems. And he said Republicans believe they can "ride people's anger and frustration all the way to the ballot box."
"There is no doubt that this is a difficult election, Obama told the crowd of 10,000. "That's because we've been through an incredibly difficult time as a nation."
With early voting under way in many states, Democrats are trying to minimize the damage by concentrating their resources on a dwindling number of races.
"The poll numbers and the enthusiasm on the right versus the lack of the enthusiasm on the left suggest a pretty big Republican night," said former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, who once headed the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
With Democrats in power while the unemployment rate stands at 9.6 percent, "it's difficult to say, 'Well it could have been worse,'" Kerrey said.
Polls, campaign finance reports and advisers in both parties indicate that Republicans are in line to seize on a level of voter discontent that rivals 1994, when the GOP gained the House majority for the first time in 40 years. Democrats are embattled at every level.
HOUSE:
Republicans need to win 40 seats to regain the House majority they lost four years ago. Even some Democratic officials acknowledge that their losses could well exceed that.
A GOP takeover would depose Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as the first female House speaker and force Obama to negotiate with Republicans on every significant legislative issue.
Every day brings fresh evidence of Democratic officials virtually abandoning House members whose re-election bids seem hopeless. Republicans are expanding the field to pursue races that once appeared unattainable. In the coming week, Republicans or GOP-leaning outside groups plan to spend money in a 82 House races that they see as competitive or within reach of a last-minute upset.
Democrats, desperate to hold their losses to three dozen seats, plan to run TV ads in 59 races in the remaining days. But their chief House campaign committee has recently canceled millions of dollars worth of advertising for struggling Reps. Steve Driehaus and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Betsy Markey of Colorado and Steve Kagen of Wisconsin.
They are shifting some of that money to incumbents once considered safe, such as Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva. But in a sign of the election's volatility, they also are helping viable incumbents they had expected to be trailing significantly — South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, for example.
The Democrats' House campaign committee raised almost $16 million in September and has $41.6 million in the bank.
That's a big fundraising advantage over the GOP's House campaign committee. But the figures are misleading because heavy spending by outside groups, which often hide their donors' identities, clearly favors Republican candidates.
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SENATE:
To gain the Senate majority, Republicans must hold all 18 of their seats on this year's ballots while picking up 10 of the 19 Democratic seats. It's a tough task, but not inconceivable.
Democrats trail badly in states where they once held some hope of supplanting Republicans: Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio and Florida. Kentucky is the only one that's still close. But Democrats have reduced their spending there, a sign that Republican and tea party favorite Rand Paul is clearly ahead.
Among seats now held by Democrats, Republicans are favored to win open races in North Dakota and Indiana, and to oust Sen. Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas.
In Pennsylvania, where Republican Pat Toomey had comfortably led Democrat Joe Sestak in polls, the race has tightened in recent weeks, forcing the GOP to spend more than it had planned. The Republican Party also is pouring am additional $2 million into Illinois, where Republican Mark Kirk has slipped somewhat in polls in his race against Democrat Alexi Giannoulias for Obama's old seat.
That said, Democrats say Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold is struggling mightily, and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet is in a tough fight.
Races are extremely close in West Virginia and Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is battling tea party-backed Republican Sharron Angle in a bitter and costly campaign.
Democrats are anxiously watching Sens. Barbara Boxer in California and Patty Murray in Washington. Private polls show Republicans pulling closer but still trailing.
Should Republicans win all the close races and knock off either Boxer or Murray, they may rue the nomination of tea partier Christine O'Donnell, who badly trails Chris Coons in Delaware. That once-promising state could have provided the 10th GOP win needed to take the Senate majority.
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GOVERNORS:
Democrats risk losing a dozen governors' chairs they now hold, including those in pivotal presidential states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Maine and New Mexico. Also possibly falling into GOP hands are Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming, Tennessee, Illinois and perhaps Oregon.
Democrats have good chances to pick up GOP-held governorships in four or five states, including California and possibly Florida.
The Republican Governors Association's $31 million haul over the past three months enables the GOP to jump into more races. The Democratic Governors Association raised $10 million in that period.
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MESSAGING:
Perhaps nothing has frustrated Democrats more than their yearlong failure to find a message that could puncture the anger of millions of voters who seem bent on punishing the party in power. It wasn't for a lack of trying.
Obama may have charmed stadiums full of voters in 2008, but he and congressional Democrats never recovered from barrages of criticism in 2009 about unemployment, bank bailouts and strong-arm legislative tactics used on issues such as health care.
Eight months ago, Democrats boldly predicted that voters would embrace the new health care law once portions took effect, such as the right to keep children on their parents' insurance plans until age 26. Obama practically dared GOP lawmakers to urge the law's repeal.
"Go for it," he said in Iowa in March. "If these congressmen in Washington want to come here in Iowa and tell small-business owners that they plan to take away their tax credits and essentially raise their taxes, be my guest."
It didn't work out that way. By the time the health bill's first elements became law on Sept. 23, most Democratic candidates were ducking it, and many had to defend their votes amid harsh attacks from Republican opponents.
Democrats turned their energies to framing the election as a series of one-on-one contests about local issues, while Republicans kept portraying it as a national referendum on Obama and the economy.
The national theme persisted, so Democrats tried to turn it to their advantage. Obama repeatedly reminded voters that former President George W. Bush had left him with a major recession, failing banks and a rapidly growing deficit. Don't give the car keys back to those who drove the economy into the ditch, Obama would say dozens of times.
In the early autumn, the president and his allies tried another tack: portraying House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, as the well-tanned face of a party that would let Wall Street run amok while the richest Americans kept enjoying deep tax cuts. In an Ohio speech, Obama cited Boehner's name eight times.
Voters seemed to shrug. Obama and his top aides then tried a new approach: accusing Republican supporters, particularly the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, of funding campaigns with millions of undisclosed dollars, some of them possibly from foreign sources.
The group and others angrily denied the allegations, and Democratic strategists said they saw little evidence that the debate was moving voters.
As Election Day draws nearer, top Democrats seem almost desperate and hyperbolic. The chairman of the Democratic Party, Tim Kaine, compared conservative groups' campaign spending with the Watergate scandal, even though no one has provided evidence of wrongdoing, let alone criminality.
Kerrey, the Nebraska Democrat, said the White House has careened from message to message all year without finding an economic pitch to reassure Americans deeply worried about finding or holding jobs.
"They said, 'It could have been worse, we did pass health care reform, we did pass financial services industry reform,'" Kerrey said. "Those arguments don't do much to much to confront what is a building momentum in the opposite direction."
Many Republicans say there's almost nothing that Obama and other Democrats can do at this stage.
"It's as if the concrete has already been poured around the Democrats' feet," said GOP consultant Kevin Madden.
—
Associated Press writers Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Jim Kuhnhenn and Julie Pace contributed to this report.

As Democrats' message lags, GOP awaits huge wins

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12Oct/10Off

Emotions Run High As Officer Involved Car Wrecks Spike

Huntsville, AL - Over the past few weeks, we've seen several wrecks involving Huntsville Police Officers. Three of them have been serious, and the most recent killed a mother of three, who was expecting her fourth child.

While no one questions that police officers risk their lives to keep us safe, many in the community are now wondering why they are involved in so many auto accidents.

"(In) the last two months, we've had 25 accidents" admits Huntsville Police spokesman Harry Hobbs. "But 14 of those accidents were just little fender benders, and out of those 25 only 11 were at fault to the police officer that maybe could have been avoided."

For many people, those 11 where and officer was at fault is 11 too many. But Hobbs insists when you factor in the fact that many patrol officers are in their cars for hours at a time without a wreck, the numbers aren't as bad as they seem.

Unfortunately, accidents do happen. One such accident that happened Friday night proved deadly.

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10Oct/10Off

Late Night Wreck Lands Three In The Hospital, Including A Huntsville Police Officer

Huntsville-A late night car accident sent three people to the hospital, including a Huntsville Police Officer.

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5Oct/10Off

US strike kills 5 German militants in Pakistan

BERLIN -An American missile strike killed five German militants Monday in the rugged Pakistan border area where a cell of Germans and Britons at the heart of the U.S. terror alert for Europe — a plot U.S. officials link to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden — were believed in hiding.
The attack, part of a recent spike in American drone strikes on Pakistan, came as Germany said it has "concrete evidence" that at least 70 Germans have undergone paramilitary training in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and about a third have returned to Germany.
Authorities across Europe have heightened security at airports and other travel hubs as well as at main tourist attractions following the U.S. warning of an al-Qaida-linked terror plot targeting London, Paris, Berlin and other European capitals.
Washington warned Americans over the weekend to use caution when traveling in Europe and imposed a curfew on some U.S. troops based in Germany. On Monday, Britain, Japan and Sweden issued warnings of their own, advising their citizens traveling in Europe to be on alert for possible terrorist attack by al-Qaida or other groups.
Police officers with sniffer dogs patrolled subways in Britain on Monday, while soldiers and mounted police were dispatched to two major churches in Paris — Notre Dame in the heart of the city and Sacre Coeur on the Right Bank. Paramilitary troops were also seen patrolling the area around the Eiffel Tower — twice evacuated in recent weeks for unspecified threats.
The U.S. missile strike in Pakistan killed five German militants taking shelter in a house in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, a known hub for foreign militants with links to al-Qaida, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The terror cell said to be behind the Europe plot — eight Germans and a Briton — were believed to have been in hiding in the region. A second Briton was killed in a U.S. strike last month.
A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday that his office was checking the report of the latest killings. He declined to be named in keeping with policy.
However, the German police agency responsible for terrorism investigations, the Federal Criminal Police Office, said as many as 220 people have traveled from Germany to Pakistan and Afghanistan for paramilitary training, and at least 70 have received it. A Pakistani intelligence official last week said there are believed to be around 60 Germans in North Waziristan now.
Despite the growing evidence of a terror plot, France, Britain and Germany — the nations believed to be the targets of the scheme — have not changed their terror threat levels. On Monday, the German government played down the fears by declaring there is "no reason to be alarmist."
The threat is being viewed differently by Washington and European capitals, and some analysts said it was a matter of approach. Such differences have played out repeatedly in the years since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, they said.
British intelligence prefers to keep targets under surveillance as they plan attacks, often waiting until the final stages to intervene — hoping to gather evidence and to gain information about contacts in Britain and overseas.
"That cuts significantly too close to the bone for the United States. They are not happy to let plots run for too long," said Tobias Feakin, director of national security and resilience at London's Royal United Services Institute, a military think tank.
In Germany, the homeland security spokesman for the main opposition Social Democratic party said there is a different security culture in Europe and the United States.
"After 9/11 there were almost daily warnings of new threats in the U.S. which — thank God! — never became a reality" in Germany, Dieter Wiefelspuetz said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday that the travel advisory was issued because of extensive evidence of a plot.
"We felt, having tracked intelligence over a lengthy period of time, it was appropriate to issue this alert at this moment," he said.
"We specifically have said continue with your travel plans, but just be cautious because we are aware of active plots against the United States, American citizens and other allies around the world."
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere insisted his nation had no concrete evidence of an imminent attack. "There is no reason to be alarmist at this time," de Maiziere said.
He said he had spoken with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about the travel advisory and that it is not "in keeping with our assessment of the situation."
In a rare public speech last month, MI5 director general Jonathan Evans warned that the risk of attacks can never be completely eradicated.
"We appear increasingly to have imported from the American media the assumption that terrorism is 100 percent preventable and any incident that is not prevented is seen as a culpable government failure. This is a nonsensical way to consider terrorist risk," Evans said.
Many tourists said they planned to be vigilant but would not change their plans.
"I'm very happy to be here in France. I think we're very safe, and I trust the French government to keep us safe," said James O'Connell, 59, of Pittsburgh.
Hannah Haskins, an 18-year-old from Portland, Oregon, who has been in Spain for a month working as an au pair, said she is headed to Britain next week for a visit and will be on guard but not obsessed with the terror alert.
"I probably will be alert and it is going to be high on my mind, but it won't change my plans," she said.
"I will catch the subways, go to the museums and enjoy. There are so many threats and this one is very vague. There is always a threat, so what's the difference?"
—
Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad in Islamabad, Paisley Dodds and David Stringer in London, Juergen Baetz in Berlin Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Eileen Sullivan and Matthew Lee in Washington, Jorge Sainz in Madrid and AP Television News reporter Nicolas Garriga in Paris contributed to this report.

US strike kills 5 German militants in Pakistan

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16Sep/10Off

Pope visits UK, admits failures in abuse scandal

EDINBURGH, Scotland -Pope Benedict XVI, beginning a controversial state visit to Britain, acknowledged Thursday that the Catholic Church failed to act decisively or quickly enough to deal with priests who rape and molest children and said the church's top priority now was to help the victims.
The pope's comments to reporters traveling with him from Rome marked his most thorough admission to date of church failures to deal with the sex abuse scandal. The issue has reignited with the recent revelations in Belgium of hundreds of new victims, at least 13 of whom committed suicide.
Benedict also said abusive priests must never have access to children, saying they suffered from an illness that mere "goodwill" couldn't cure.
Benedict's four-day visit to Britain has been overshadowed by anger over the abuse scandal and marked by indifference in the highly secular country where Catholics are a small minority.
The pope's first meeting Thursday was with Queen Elizabeth II, both head of state and head of the Church of England, at a palace in Scotland. Benedict was greeted at the airport by the queen's husband, Prince Philip.
The pope answered questions, submitted in advance by journalists traveling with him to Britain, where anger about the abuse scandal remains high.
Protests are planned, "Pope Nope" T-shirts have been spotted around London and public discussions of the Roman Catholic Church's celibacy requirement for priests are being held.
Benedict acknowledged the opposition, saying Britain had a "great history of anti-Catholicism. But it is also a country with a great history of tolerance."
He was asked about Britain's history of anti-Catholic sentiment and polls that suggest that the faithful had lost trust in the church as a result of the sex abuse scandal. Benedict said he was shocked and saddened upon learning of the scope of the abuse, in part because priests take vows to be Christ's voice upon ordination.
He said he felt "sadness also that the church authority was not sufficiently vigilant and not sufficiently quick and decisive to take the necessary measures" to stop the abuse and prevent it from occurring again. The pope said the victims were the church's top priority now.
He said he expected a warm welcome from Catholics and other believers and "mutual respect and tolerance" among those with anti-Catholic sentiments.
"I go forward with much courage and joy," he said.
Thousands of tickets to papal events remain unclaimed in an increasingly secular country even as many of the faithful have expressed joy about his imminent arrival.
The trip is the first state visit by a pope to the U.K., and his meeting with the queen is symbolically significant because of the historic divide between the officially Protestant nation and the Catholic Church.
The queen is head of the Church of England, which split acrimoniously from Rome in the 16th century, a division followed by centuries of anti-Catholic sentiment. The visit also coincides with the 450th anniversary of the Reformation in Scotland.
The last papal visit to Britain was by John Paul II in 1982. Benedict's trip to Britain is a state visit because he was invited by the monarch.
After meeting the queen at The Palace of Holyrood House, the pope will take part in a parade through the center of Edinburgh, where police expect up to 100,000 well-wishers to line the streets. The Scottish government plans to fly the Vatican City flag at its headquarters to mark the historic visit.
The Catholic Church has been rocked by a series of sex abuse scandals, from covered-up cases in Boston to the report in Belgium this week of hundreds of victims' harrowing accounts of molestation. The pope has been criticized for his response to the crisis and the fallout from the scandal appears to have dampened enthusiasm for his visit.
There is also strong opposition to Benedict's hard line against homosexuality, abortion and using condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.
Cardinal Keith O'Brien, leader of Scotland's minority Catholics, admitted that the damage caused by the sex scandals has been considerable.
"(The abuse cases) have caused terrible injury to children and young adults, and equally horrible have been the cover-ups, but I think the pope has put strong steps to prevent it from happening," he said in a statement. "Nobody loses face by saying 'sorry' and 'I'm trying to do better.'"
The start of the trip risked being overshadowed by remarks by one of the pope's advisers, German Cardinal Walter Kasper, who compared arriving in multicultural London to landing "in a Third World country." He also told a German magazine that an "aggressive atheism" was spreading in Britain.
The British media, expressing outrage, cited the remarks as the latest example of a gaffe-prone papacy. Kasper's office later said he would not be coming to the U.K. due to illness.
Only 65,000 of the faithful are expected to attend an open air Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow later Thursday, compared to the 100,000 previously expected. At the Mass the pope will be serenaded by Susan Boyle, the "Britain's Got Talent" reality show star who shot to global fame last year.
The bookish pontiff lacks the charisma of his predecessor John Paul II, who pulled in a crowd of 250,000 for Mass at the same Glasgow park.
A beatification event will follow on Sunday for Cardinal John Newman in Birmingham, which will see the 19th-century English philosopher take a step on his way to sainthood.
The estimated 12-million-pound ($18.6-million) cost of the visit, not including security, has been attacked by critics at a time when Britain faces deep budget cuts.
Security for Thursday's events in Scotland alone will cost 1 million pound ($1.55 million), according to the U.K. government. The pope will travel from Edinburgh to Glasgow in a 26-car convoy. More than 1,000 police officers will be deployed in Glasgow and 600 in Edinburgh, and they will be backed up by armed response units.
A number of demonstrations are expected in Edinburgh, including 70 protesters led by a Northern Ireland Protestant leader, the Rev. Ian Paisley, at the Magdalen Chapel, where John Knox, the leader of the Scottish Reformation, preached.
"We are championing those who have been very, very badly treated by these priests of Rome," Paisley said of the sex abuse scandals.
While some may have been put off by the 20-pound ($31) suggested donation for a ticket to Bellahouston to cover transportation costs, detractors such as the Humanist Society of Scotland believe people are indifferent to the papal visit because of the church scandals and growing secularism.
There are about 850,000 Catholics in Scotland, according to the 2001 U.K. Census, but 27 percent of Scots — about 1.5 million — did not register a religion or said they were atheists.
"We believe that the vast majority of people do not approve of this visit, or the state funding of it," said Tim Maguire of the Humanist Society. "Politicians pay too much heed to the religious vote when in fact the majority is nonreligious."
His organization has placed billboards along the route the pope will take between Edinburgh and Glasgow that read: "Two million Scots are good without God."
Yet at St. Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh, some worshippers eagerly prepared for the pope's arrival.
"It is wonderful that the Holy Father is coming to Scotland and I prayed today for good weather," said Mary McManus, 78.
James Ferguson, 72, a retired electrician, acknowledged that the church sex abuse scandals were "sickening."
"(But) what's worse is that opponents of the church have made hay with them and the church's response to them," he said. "In some ways, we are being made to feel foolish about being Catholic and so I hope this visit will make us proud."

Pope visits UK, admits failures in abuse scandal

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8Sep/10Off

Obama firm, won’t yield on tax hike for wealthiest

CLEVELAND -Politically weakened but refusing to bend, President Barack Obama insisted Wednesday that Bush-era tax cuts be cut off for the wealthiest Americans, joining battle with Republicans — and some fellow Democrats — just two months before bruising midterm elections.
Singling out House GOP leader John Boehner in his home state, Obama delivered a searing attack on Republicans for advocating "the same philosophy that led to this mess in the first place: cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations."
Obama rolled out a trio of new plans to help spur job growth and invigorate the sluggish national economic recovery. They would expand and permanently extend a research and development tax credit that lapsed in 2009, allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their investments in equipment and plants through 2011 and pump $50 billion into highway, rail, airport and other infrastructure projects.
The package was assembled by the president's economic team after it became clear that the recovery was running out of steam. There was a political component, too: With Democrats in danger of losing control of the House in November, Obama is under heavy pressure to show voters that he and his party are ready to do more to get the economy moving and get millions of jobless Americans back to work.
However, none of Wednesday's proposals, nor Obama's call for allowing tax rates to rise for the wealthiest Americans, seems likely to be acted on by Congress before the elections, reflecting the battering Obama and congressional Democrats have taken in public opinion polls.
Obama made one of his strongest appeals yet to allow the tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush — in 2001 and 2003 — to expire at the end of the year on schedule, but just for individuals earning more than $200,000 annually or joint filers earning over $250,000. The changes would affect dividend and capital gains rates and various other tax benefits as well as income from wages and salaries.
The president's strategy — pushing for legislation to save some tax cuts but not all — carries its own risks. Since all the tax breaks would expire automatically at the end of the year if Congress failed to act, that could result in sweeping increases for taxpayers at every income level — a major blow to recovery hopes and a colossal dose of blame for voters to parcel out to lawmakers and the White House.
Some influential Democrats, and Obama's own former budget director, Peter Orszag, have suggested a compromise might be necessary — one to temporarily extend all the tax cuts, perhaps for a year or two — given the current election-year animosity between the two parties.
But in his remarks in Cleveland, Obama strongly signaled he wasn't about to sign off on any such deal.
"Let me be clear to Mr. Boehner and everyone else. We should not hold middle class tax cuts hostage any longer," the president said. The administration "is ready this week to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less," he said. It was a slight misstatement of his own position, since the $250,000 would apply to household income. The threshold for individuals would be $200,000
White House officials said Cleveland was picked as the speech site expressly because Boehner, who probably would become House speaker if Republicans take back control of the chamber in November, laid out his party's economic agenda here in a fiery Aug. 24 speech.
At that time, the Ohio Republican called for Obama to fire key economic advisers and to support an extension of all the Bush tax cuts.
Boehner kept up the attack on Wednesday. "If the president is really serious about focusing on jobs, a good start would be taking the advice of his recently departed budget director and freezing all tax rates, coupled with cutting of federal spending to where it was before all the bailouts, government takeovers and `stimulus' spending sprees," he said after Obama spoke.
Earlier, Boehner was even more specific on ABC's "Good Morning America," saying Congress should freeze all tax rates for two years and pare back federal spending to 2008 levels. The deep recession began in December 2007.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs noted that keeping the Bush tax cuts in effect just for two more years would represent a change from past calls by Boehner to keep them in place permanently.
"My question for him is: Are they abandoning the permanent or are they going with the two-year plan? I've seen him saying permanent so many times that I tend to believe that," Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One. "That's his plan and I think that continues to be his plan."
Republicans, and some Democrats, argue that the fragile state of the economy makes this a poor time to raise taxes on anyone — and that increases could stifle wealthier people's appetite for spending.
Obama argued that the rich are more likely to save additional money than spend it. And he said the struggling U.S. economy can't afford to spend $700 billion to keep lower tax rates in place for the nation's highest earners.
That $700 billion is what the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates it would cost the Treasury to continue tax cuts for top earners over 10 years. What Obama wants to do would cost just over $3 trillion over the same period, the panel estimates.
The debate over the Bush tax cuts is an unwelcome one for dozens of vulnerable Democratic incumbents just weeks before Election Day. Already, a handful of Democrats in conservative or swing districts, such as Reps. Gerry Connolly in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Bobby Bright in southeastern Alabama, have come out publicly for extending all the cuts — at least temporarily.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., engaged in a tight re-election battle, said he "would not support additional spending in a second stimulus package" and that any new initiatives such as Obama's infrastructure package should be paid for with leftover funds in the $814 billion stimulus package passed last year.
Still other embattled Democrats, wary of alienating middle-class voters, are siding with Obama. In central Ohio, for example, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy has said the tax cuts for higher earners should be repealed but middle-income people should see no tax increases.
Obama acknowledged recovery had slowed noticeably, with unemployment hovering just under 10 percent.
"The middle class is still treading water, while those aspiring to reach the middle class are doing everything they can to keep from drowning," he said.
Polls have shown a steady slippage in Obama's approval ratings and an accompanying rise in Republican prospects for winning House and Senate seats in November. That has chipped away at Obama's leverage to get things done in Congress.
—
Tom Raum reported from Washington. AP Writers Stephen Ohlemacher and Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report.

Obama firm, won't yield on tax hike for wealthiest

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30Aug/10Off

William Frazier Found Guilty

80 year old William Frazier - the man at the center of an $8 million lawsuit against the Huntsville Police Department - has been found guilty of several traffic offenses.

After multiple delays, Frazier finally appeared in Municipal Court on Monday, flanked by several family members and supporters. In the end, a judge found him guilty on three charges - fleeing and eluding police, driving without a license, and failure to yield right of way. The charges stem from a February 1st incident where Frazier led police on a low speed chase, with several close calls with other cars.

Frazier claims when that chase ended, he was injured by police officers. In April, the city released that video. Frazier is seen running a red light, hitting a curb and swerving several times. The video shows Frazier being torn from the car, but there is no visible evidence of any physical attacks from officers.

His lawsuit is still pending.

William Frazier Found Guilty

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25Aug/10Off

Ardmore High School Officials Offer Help for Grieving Teens

24Aug/10Off

Supplies reach Chilean miners; now, the long wait

COPIAPO, Chile -Trapped nearly half a mile inside the earth and facing perhaps four months before rescue, 33 Chilean miners began getting food, water and oxygen from above ground Monday as rescue teams worked to gauge their state of mind and brace them for the long wait ahead.
Through a newly installed communications system, each of the men spoke and reported feeling hungry but well, except for one with a stomach problem, a Chilean official said. They requested toothbrushes.
It was a positive sign, and Chile's president said the nation was "crying with excitement and joy" after engineers broke through Sunday to the men's refuge. It had been 17 days since a landslide at the gold and copper mine caused a tunnel to collapse and entombed them more than 2,200 feet below ground.
Still, doctors and psychological experts were trying to safeguard the very sanity of the miners in the months to come, and said they were implementing a plan that included keeping them informed and busy. The miners reported that a shift foreman named Luis Urzua had assumed leadership of the trapped men.
"They need to understand what we know up here at the surface, that it will take many weeks for them to reach the light," Health Minister Jaime Manalich explained.
Engineers worked to reinforce the 6-inch-wide bore hole that broke through to the refuge, using a long hose to coat its walls with a metallic gel to decrease the risk of rock falling and blocking the hard-won passage through the unstable mine.
The lubricant makes it easier to pass supplies through in capsules nicknamed "palomas," Spanish for dove. The first of the packages, which are about 5 feet long and take about an hour to descend from the surface, held rehydration tablets and a high-energy glucose gel to help the miners begin to recover their digestive systems.
Rescue teams also sent oxygen down after the miners suggested there was not enough air in the stretches of the mine that run below where the main shaft collapsed.
The shelter, a living-room-sized chamber off one of the mine's lower passages that is easily big enough for all 33 men, is far enough from the landslide to remain intact, and the men can also walk around below where the rocks fell. The temperature there is around 90 to 93 degrees (32-34 degrees Celsius).
Actual food will be sent down in several days, after the men's stomachs have had time to adjust, said Paola Neuman of the medical rescue service.
Rescuers also sent down questionnaires to determine each man's condition, along with medicine and small microphones to enable them to speak with their families during their long wait. Rescue leader Andre Sougarret said they were organizing the families into small groups to make their talks as orderly as possible.
Meanwhile, an enormous machine with diamond-tipped drills capable of carving a 26-inch-wide tunnel through solid rock and boring at about 65 feet a day was on its way from central Chile to the San Jose gold and copper mine, outside Copiapo in north-central Chile.
The machine was donated by the state-owned Codelco copper company and carried on a truck festooned with Chilean flags. Just setting it up will take at least three more days.
Engineers were also boring two more narrow shafts to the trapped men, but stopped Monday just above their refuge while they made sure that the lifeline was fully secure. Only when these three shafts are complete will they begin carving out the tunnel large enough to fit a man, Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said.
"We cannot be 100 percent precise, but the idea is to establish three or four points of contact so that we can guarantee better life conditions to our comrades down there," he said.
Besides their immediate physical needs such as medicine to restore their raw stomachs and sleep cycles, the rescuers were preparing psychiatric counseling. A first step was the questionnaires, which were also intended to help identify their natural leader — someone who can make sure the men are keeping busy and mentally focused.
Above ground, rescuers and family members thought that might be Mario Gomez, who at 63 is perhaps the oldest of the veteran miners down below. Gomez's letter to his wife, Liliana, which the miners tied to the drill bit, was full of expressions of faith and determination, revealing to the world that the miners were holding strong.
"Even if we have to wait months to communicate ... I want to tell everyone that I'm good and we'll surely come out OK," Gomez wrote, scrawling the words on a sheet of notebook paper. "Patience and faith. God is great and the help of my God is going to make it possible to leave this mine alive."
But Urzua, 54, was the shift foreman at the time of the collapse, and Golborne said Monday that "it seems the miners respect hierarchies."
For the miners' families, euphoria and anxiety made for a sleepless night. They shivered through the cold and fog in Chile's Atacama desert.
"We stayed up all night long hoping for more news. They said that new images would appear, so we were up hoping to see them," said one, Carolina Godoy.
The men already have been trapped underground longer than all but a few miners rescued in recent history. Last year, three miners survived 25 days trapped in a flooded mine in southern China, and two miners in northeastern China were rescued after 23 days in 1983. Few other rescues have taken more than two weeks.
The miners' survival after 17 days is very unusual, but since they've made it this far, they should emerge physically fine, said Davitt McAteer, who was assistant secretary for mine safety and health at the U.S. Labor Department under President Bill Clinton.
"The health risks in a copper and gold mine are pretty small if you have air, food and water," McAteer said.
Mine officials and relatives of the workers were determined not to give up hope that the men were safe below where the tunnel collapsed Aug. 5 at the mine, about 530 miles north of Santiago, the capital.
Rescuers had drilled repeatedly in an effort to reach the shelter, but failed seven times. They blamed the errors on the mining company's maps. According to Gomez's note, at least some of those earlier probes were close enough that the trapped miners heard them. The eighth attempt finally worked.
Gomez wrote that the miners used vehicles for light and a backhoe to dig a channel to retrieve underground water. And while his message focused on faith and love for his family, his frustration also showed through. He wrote that "this company has got to modernize."
Chile is the world's top copper producer and a leading gold producer, and has some of the world's most advanced mining operations. But both the company that owns the mine, San Esteban, and the National Mining and Geology Service have been criticized for allegedly failing to comply with regulations. In 2007, an explosion at the San Jose mine killed three workers.
President Sebastian Pinera said Monday that "there is not going to be any impunity" and said investigations were under way.
Shortly after the accident, Pinera fired two top executives of Sernageomin, Chile's mine safety regulator, after reports that the mine had reopened too soon, and without real security improvements, after a fatal accident three years before. Pinera has also asked a commission for proposals to increase worker safety in Chile.
The miners' relatives are suing and claim their loved ones were put at risk working in a mine known for unstable shafts and rock falls. Company executives have denied the accusations and say the lawsuits could force them into bankruptcy.
—
Associated Press writers Federico Quilodran in Santiago, Chile, Peter Orsi in Mexico City and Michael Warren in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.

Supplies reach Chilean miners; now, the long wait

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23Aug/10Off

US troops unlikely to resume combat duties in Iraq

WASHINGTON -It would take "a complete failure" of the Iraqi security forces for the U.S. to resume combat operations there, the top American commander in Iraq said as the final U.S. fighting forces prepared to leave the country.
With a major military milestone in sight, Gen. Ray Odierno said in interviews broadcast Sunday that any resumption of combat duties by American forces is unlikely.
"We don't see that happening," Odierno said. The Iraqi security forces have been doing "so well for so long now that we really believe we're beyond that point."
President Barack Obama plans a major speech on Iraq after his return to Washington, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because details were being finalized. The speech will come shortly after Obama returns to the White House on Aug. 29 from his Martha's Vineyard vacation.
About 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in the country until the end of 2011 to serve as a training and assistance force, a dramatic drawdown from the peak of more than 170,000 during the surge of American forces in 2007.
Obama will face a delicate balancing act in his speech between welcoming signs of progress and bringing an end to the 7-year-old war without prematurely declaring the mission accomplished, as former President George W. Bush once did.
U.S. involvement in Iraq beyond the end of 2011, Odierno said, probably would involve assisting the Iraqis secure their airspace and borders.
While Iraq forces can handle internal security and protect Iraqis, Odierno said he believes military commanders want to have the U.S. involved beyond 2011 to help Iraqis acquire the required equipment, training and technical capabilities.
He said Iraq's security forces have matured to the point where they will be ready to shoulder enough of the burden to permit the remaining 50,000 soldiers to go home at the end of next year.
If the Iraqis asked that American troops remain in the country after 2011, Odierno said U.S. officials would consider it, but that would be a policy decision made by the president and his national security advisers.
Odierno's assessment, while optimistic, also acknowledges the difficult road ahead for the Iraqis as they take control of their own security, even as political divisions threaten the formation of the fledgling democracy.
South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, who's on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CBS' "Face the Nation" that he hopes "we will have an enduring relationship of having some military presence in Iraq. I think that would be smart not to let things unwind over the next three or five years."
On Thursday, the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division began crossing the border from Iraq into Kuwait, becoming the last combat brigade to leave Iraq. Its exodus, along with that of the approximately 2,000 remaining U.S. combat forces destined to leave in the coming days, fulfills Obama's pledge to end combat operations in Iraq by Aug. 31.
In interviews with CBS' "Face the Nation" and CNN's "State of the Union," Odierno said it may take several years before America can determine if the war was a success.
"A strong democratic Iraq will bring stability to the Middle East, and if we see Iraq that's moving toward that, two, three, five years from now, I think we can call our operations a success," he said.
Much of that may hinge on whether Iraq's political leaders can overcome ethnic divisions and work toward a more unified government, while also enabling security forces to tamp down a simmering insurgency.
Iraq's political parties have been bickering for more than five months since the March parliamentary elections failed to produce a clear winner. They have yet to reach agreements on how to share power or whether to replace embattled Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and amid the political instability, other economic and governmental problems fester.
Fueling that instability is neighboring Iran which, Odierno said, continues to fund and train Shiite extremist groups.
"They don't want to see Iraq turn into a strong democratic country. They'd rather see it become a weak governmental institution," said Odierno.
He added that he is not worried that Iraq will fall back into a military dictatorship, as it was under the reign of Saddam Hussein.
—
Associated Press writer Erica Werner in Edgartown, Mass., contributed to this report.
—
Online:
U.S. forces in Iraq:
http://www.usf-iraq.com/
Defense Department:
http://www.defenselink.mil

US troops unlikely to resume combat duties in Iraq

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12Aug/10Off

White House: US on track to end Iraq combat role

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama is satisfied that the United States can safely end its combat role in Iraq at the end of this month and meet the deadline for removing all U.S. troops from the country by the end of 2011, White House officials said Wednesday.
Obama was briefed on the status of the withdrawal from Iraq by his national security team and the top U.S. commander in Iraq. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president was also brought up to date on so far unsuccessful efforts by Iraq to form a new government five months after national elections.
Obama met with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, national security adviser James Jones and, by videoconference, the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno.
"The president heard directly from General Odierno, who said that we were on target to complete our drawdown by the end of August. Already we have removed over 80,000 troops from Iraq since President Obama took office," Gibbs said.
Gibbs and other U.S. officials said an uptick in violence as August 31 draws nearer was expected. They blamed it on the start of the monthlong Islamic observance of Ramadan, and on attempts by factions to further complicate efforts to form a coalition government and by some militants to create the appearance that they were running the U.S. out of the country.
Ongoing attacks against Iraq's security forces come as the U.S. is moving to reduce its troop levels to 50,000 by the end of August.
"There continue to be terrorists in Iraq. There continue to be acts of violence," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told a group of reporters. "They have not affected the positive trends" happening in Iraq and the overall level of violence is lower than it has been in the past, Rhodes said.
Gibbs said Odierno told Obama the security situation has continued to improve and that Iraqi forces are fully prepared to take over.
Obama has vowed both to end the official U.S. combat mission on schedule and to move all remaining U.S. troops off Iraqi soil by the end of 2011, a timetable set in an agreement with the Iraqi government.
The president also received an update from Vice President Joe Biden and Christopher Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, on Iraq's troubled efforts to form a new government.
Biden's national security adviser, Tony Blinken, said frustration is building among the Iraqis over failure to form a coalition government. "There is a sense of urgency to move forward and get a government formed," he said. "We really believe there is forward movement. But it's not up to us."
In a National Public Radio interview from Baghdad earlier in the day, Hill said the pace of political progress has quickened in recent weeks and that "things may be heading in the right direction" even though "more needs to be done."
White House officials sought to blunt suggestions that the end of 2011 deadline for removing all remaining troops might be impossible to meet.
"All systems in the U.S. government are getting down to...there will be no troops (in Iraq) after 2011," said Rhodes. He said an exception would be security forces to protect the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
In the meantime, he said, "50,000 troops are capable of accomplishing a great deal," even though the U.S. mission will change on Sept. 1 to one of support.

White House: US on track to end Iraq combat role

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1Aug/10Off

En route to Funeral Patrol Car Crashes Killing Two in Lawrence County

LAWRENCE COUNTY, AL (WAAY) A husband and wife are dead after a car accident involving a patrol officer. The two car accident happened just before 11 am, Saturday,

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9Jul/10Off

Driver leaves scene of hit-and-run…twice

29Jun/10Off

Kagan insists she didn’t block military at Harvard

WASHINGTON -Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan clashed Tuesday with a Republican senator over the limits she ordered on military recruiters while dean of Harvard Law School, repeatedly denying she blocked them as she sought to deflect foes' efforts to slow her apparently smooth road to confirmation.
Despite a testy exchange with the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, President Barack Obama's nominee soldiered through her second day of public testimony on Capitol Hill apparently in good shape to win Senate approval — barring a major gaffe — in time to take her seat before the court opens a new term in October. If confirmed, Kagan, 50, would succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens
Republican foes weren't giving up quietly. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said he emerged from the long day of questioning more "troubled" about Kagan's nomination than he had been previously. During his sometimes heated back-and-forth with Kagan, Sessions said her decision to bar recruiters from the law school's career services office over the Pentagon's prohibition on openly gay soldiers was "punishing" the military at Harvard, treating them in a "second-class way" and creating a hostile environment for the military on campus.
Kagan said she was trying to balance Harvard's nondiscrimination policy, which she believed "don't ask, don't tell" violated, with a federal law that required schools to give military recruiters equal access as a condition of eligibility for federal funds. She said she welcomed the military, and believed her policy of requiring recruiters to work through a student veterans group — first set by a predecessor — was a valid compromise.
"We were trying to make sure that military recruiters had full and complete access to our students, but we were also trying to protect our own antidiscrimination policy and to protect the students whom it is ... supposed to protect, which in this case were our gay and lesbian students," Kagan said.
Sessions rejected her version of events and accused Kagan of defying federal law because of her strong opposition to the military's treatment of homosexuals.
"I know what happened at Harvard. I know you were an outspoken leader against the military policy," Sessions said "I know you acted without legal authority to reverse Harvard's policy and deny those military equal access to campus until you were threatened by the United States government of loss of federal funds."
Kagan was less willing to mix it up with Republicans who closely questioned her on controversial legal topics.
The nominee, who once wrote a strongly worded article denouncing Supreme Court nominees for dodging questions at confirmation hearings, herself refused repeatedly to be pinned down on specific legal issues, her political views or even the passions that animate her to seek a place on the court.
She did call recent Supreme Court rulings upholding gun rights "binding precedent," and she said the court's rulings mandate that in any law regulating abortion "the woman's life and the woman's health have to be protected." She said a 5-4 decision this year that said corporations and unions were free to spend their own funds on political activity was "settled law."
But she was less forthcoming when asked whether she thought that campaign finance case, which she argued for the Obama administration and lost, had been wrongly decided.
"I did believe we had a strong case to make. I tried to make it to the best of my ability," she told Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who questioned her in detail about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
She also said none of her work arguing the government's cases before the Supreme Court — she was Obama's solicitor general until last month — should be interpreted as reflecting her own positions.
"I want to make a clear distinction between my views as an advocate and any views I might have as a judge," Kagan said.
Across hours of testimony before the committee, Kagan declined to weigh in on virtually any substantive question posed to her, eluding GOP efforts to label her ideology as well as one Democrat's seemingly friendly bid to get her to open up about why she wants to be a justice.
"What motivates me is the opportunity to safeguard the rule of law," Kagan said under questioning by a visibly frustrated Sen. Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, who asked her about her passions. "I think I will take this one case at a time if I'm a judge. It would not be right for a judge to come in and say, 'I have a passion for this or that. ...' This isn't a job, I think, where somebody should come in with a substantive agenda."
Later, asked to talk about the justices she most admires, Kagan again dodged, saying it would be a "bad idea" to talk about those currently on the bench. "My oh my oh my," Kohl said, deprived again of an answer as the hearing room erupted in laughter.
Kagan did, however, express admiration for the late Justice Thurgood Marshall, the court's first African-American, whom Republicans have held up as a prime example of a judicial activist.
"I love Justice Marshall. He did an enormous amount for me," Kagan said of the man for whom she once clerked. "But if you confirm me to this position, you will get Justice Kagan. You won't get Justice Marshall, and that's an important thing."
Kohl also failed to persuade Kagan to say whether she agreed with Justice Antonin Scalia's view that the Constitution should be interpreted solely based on its text or with former Justice David Souter's contention that it should be viewed in terms of its words' "meaning for living people."
"I don't really think that this is an either-or choice," Kagan responded.
Asked by Sessions whether she considered herself "a progressive in the mold of" Obama or a "legal progressive," as one of his top aides has called her, Kagan said she'd rather choose her own labels, but declined to give herself one.
"I'm not quite sure how I would characterize my politics, but one thing I know is that my politics would be, must be, have to be separate from my judging," Kagan said. "I've served in two Democratic administrations. You can tell something about me and my political views from that."
Kagan stayed mostly calm throughout hours at a witness table, showing glimmers of humor but hardly ever veering off-script as she fielded questions on sometimes uncomfortable topics.
"You're doing well," Hatch assured her after her intense debate with Sessions on military recruitment. "Relax as much as you can."
Asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., for a "heart-to-heart talk," Kagan gamely replied, "Just you and me," to laughter from a hearing room filled with spectators, reporters and news cameras.
Kagan, the former law school dean, sometimes seemed to be teaching an introductory course in constitutional law.
She called the Constitution an "enduring document."
It has some "very specific provisions — it just says what you're supposed to do and how things are supposed to work," she said. But she added that other provisions "were meant to be interpreted over time to be applied to new situations and new contexts."

Kagan insists she didn't block military at Harvard

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21Jun/10Off

NYC car bomb suspect pleads guilty, calls it `war’

NEW YORK -Calling himself a Muslim soldier, a defiant Pakistan-born U.S. citizen pleaded guilty Monday to carrying out the failed Times Square car bombing and left a sinister warning that unless the U.S. leaves Muslim lands alone, "we will be attacking U.S."
Faisal Shahzad entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Manhattan just days after a federal grand jury indicted him on 10 terrorism and weapons counts, some of which carry mandatory life sentences. He pleaded guilty to them all.
Widely circulated snapshots of Shahzad — a U.S.-trained financial analyst and married father of two — show him with a neatly trimmed beard, all smiles and looking carefree behind sunglasses or with his American wife. When led into court Monday, he had on a white skull cap and prisoner's uniform, his beard shaggy and his demeanor serious.
U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum challenged Shahzad repeatedly with questions such as whether he looked at the people in Times Square, especially the children, to see who they were or whether he really built the bomb by himself. He repeatedly insisted he acted without help from others in the U.S. and built the bomb "all by myself."
"One has to understand where I'm coming from," Shahzad said calmly. "I consider myself ... a Muslim soldier."
The 30-year-old described his effort to set off a bomb in an SUV he parked in Times Square on May 1, saying he chose the warm Saturday night because it would be crowded with people he could injure or kill. He said he conspired with the Pakistan Taliban, which provided more than $15,000 to fund his operation and five days of explosives training late last year and early this year, just months after he became a U.S. citizen.
He explained that he packed his vehicle with three separate bomb components, hoping to set off a fertilizer-fueled bomb packed in a gun cabinet, a set of propane tanks and gas canisters rigged with fireworks to explode into a fireball. He also revealed he was carrying a folding assault rifle for "self-defense."
Shahzad said he lit a fuse and waited 2 1/2 to five minutes for the bomb to erupt.
"I was waiting to hear a sound but I didn't hear a sound. ... So I walked to Grand Central and went home," he said.
The judge repeatedly interrupted Shahzad, including when he said his plot was to retaliate against the U.S. and the forces of up to 50 other countries that had "attacked the Muslim lands."
Cedarbaum said: "But not the people who were walking in Times Square that night. Did you look around to see who they were?"
"Well, the people select the government," Shahzad said. "We consider them all the same. The drones, when they hit ... "
Cedarbaum interrupted again: "Including the children?"
Shahzad answered: "Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't see children, they don't see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It's a war, and in war, they kill people. They're killing all Muslims."
Later, he added: "I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their own people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die."
Cedarbaum asked him if he understood some charges carried mandatory life sentences and that he might spend the rest of his life in prison. He said he did.
At one point, she asked him if he was sure he wanted to plead guilty.
He said he wanted "to plead guilty and 100 times more" to let the U.S. know that if it did not get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, halt drone attacks and stop meddling in Muslim lands, "we will be attacking U.S."
Sentencing was scheduled for Oct. 5.
The Bridgeport, Conn., resident was arrested trying to leave the country May 3, two days after the bomb failed to ignite near a Broadway theater.
Authorities said Shahzad immediately cooperated, delaying his initial court appearance for two weeks as he spilled details of a plot meant to sow terror in the world-famous Times Square when it was packed with thousands of potential victims.
The bomb apparently sputtered, emitting smoke that attracted the attention of an alert street vendor, who notified police, setting in motion a rapid evacuation of blocks of a city still healing from the shock of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
According to the indictment issued last week, Shahzad received a total of $12,000 prior to the attack from the Pakistani Taliban through cash drop-offs in Massachusetts and Long Island.
Attorney General Eric Holder said after the plea: "Faisal Shahzad plotted and launched an attack that could have led to serious loss of life, and today the American criminal justice system ensured that he will pay the price for his actions."
FBI New York Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos called the plea "right on the mark" and praised the work of "ordinary citizens who alerted law enforcement of suspicious activity."
Shahzad was accused in the indictment of receiving explosives training in Waziristan, Pakistan, during a five-week trip to that country. He returned to the United States in February.
The indictment said he received $5,000 in cash on Feb. 25 from a co-conspirator in Pakistan and $7,000 more on April 10, allegedly sent at the co-conspirator's direction. Shahzad confirmed the payments in court Monday and said the Pakistan Taliban also gave him more than $4,000 when he left training camp, where he spent 40 days.
Shahzad, born in Pakistan, moved to the United States when he was 18.
Pakistan has arrested at least 11 people since the attempted attack. An intelligence official has alleged two of them played a role in the plot. No one has been charged.
Three men in Massachusetts and Maine suspected of supplying money to Shahzad have been detained on immigration charges; one was recently transferred to New York.
Federal authorities have said they believe money was channeled through an underground money transfer network known as "hawala," but they have said they doubt anyone in the U.S. who provided money knew what it was for.

NYC car bomb suspect pleads guilty, calls it `war'

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18Jun/10Off

Amy Bishop Anderson Treated After Suicide Attempt

WAAY 31 News has confirmed that UAHuntsville shooting suspect Amy Bishop Anderson is recovering after a failed suicide attempt.

The incident happened early Friday morning according to our sources.

It's unclear how Bishop Anderson tried to kill herself. She's been under suicide watch since her arrest February 12th.

The incident happened less than 36 hours after she was formally charged with murder in the 1986 shooting death of her brother, Seth.

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14Jun/10Off

Limestone Co. Restaurant Goes Up in Smoke

It just opened a couple of weeks ago, but the Country Boys Buffet in Limestone County is already gone.

According to witnesses, 7 employees were in the eatery around 5:30 Friday evening, getting ready for the late dinner rush. They were trying to start up the restaurant's grease pit when it suddenly caught fire. The flames jumped from the grease to a nearby garbage can. Employees tried to take the garbage out of the building to prevent it from spreading. However, that failed. The fire quickly engulfed the building, and it was gone within minutes.

The restaurant was located on Highway 127, about 2 miles away from Elkmont.

More than 50 volunteer firefighters from five different departments battled the flames and the intense summer heat. It took several hours for the fire to be brought under control. The state Fire Marshal has been called in to help the investigation. No injuries were reported.

Limestone Co. Restaurant Goes Up in Smoke

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20Oct/08Off

How to disguise your restaurant’s “C” Health and Sanitation Rating

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