And then, of course, there's government by playground rules.From the New York Times:
March 28, 2007 Bush Vows Not to Negotiate on Iraq Timetable
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, March 28 — A defiant President Bush vowed today not to negotiate with Congress about setting a date for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, and he said the American people would blame lawmakers if there is any delay in approving money for the war effort.
“Now, some of them believe that by delaying funding for our troops, they can force me to accept restrictions on our commanders that I believe would make withdrawal and defeat more likely,” Mr. Bush said. “That’s not going to happen. If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible.”
The president, speaking to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association here a day after the Senate endorsed the withdrawal of most American troops by March 31, 2008, said that the people of Iraq had already shown their desire to run their own country by voting in free elections, that Iraqi security forces are gaining strength with American help, and that the outcome in Iraq “will affect a generation of Americans.”
Far from sounding conciliatory, Mr. Bush hurled a dismissive dart at the lawmakers as he asserted that the emergency war-spending bills approved by the House and under consideration by the Senate were loaded with special-interest items, some of them downright silly.
“There’s $3.5 million for visitors to tour the Capitol and see for themselves how Congress works,” Mr. Bush said, drawing laughs from the friendly audience. “I’m not kidding you.”
“Here’s the bottom line,” Mr. Bush went on. “The House and Senate bills have too much pork, too many conditions on our commanders and an artificial timetable for withdrawal. And I have made it clear for weeks if either version comes to my desk, I’m going to veto it.” (Mr. Bush has used his veto power only once, in 2005, to reject a measure that would have expanded federal financing for embryonic stem cell research.)
The $122 billion emergency bills do include nonmilitary spending items, some with little or no connection to national defense. But about $100 billion would go to the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.
Shortly after the president’s speech, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic House speaker, said Mr. Bush should “calm down with the threats.”
Democrats will try to put the onus on Mr. Bush for any delay in providing money for the military, arguing that he is the one who is holding it up by vetoing the spending measure. “We will have legislation that will give him every dollar he asks for for our troops and more, but with accountability,” Ms. Pelosi said.
The House and Senate bills have significant differences, which would have to be reconciled before a measure could be passed by the full Congress. The House bill, passed a week ago, would require the president to bring most combat troops home by September 2008. The bill being considered by the Senate, on the other hand, would set a nonbinding goal of March 31, 2008, for withdrawal.
The House bill passed, 218 to 212. A vote on the overall Senate bill is expected on Thursday, although the March 31, 2008, withdrawal goal was endorsed in a 50-to-48 vote on Tuesday that rejected an amendment to erase the date.
Given the closeness of the votes so far, it is highly unlikely that opponents of Mr. Bush’s policies could muster the two-thirds necessary in both houses of Congress to override his veto. And Mr. Bush’s speech today was a message to Democrats that they should not assume their negotiating position is any stronger because of their narrow victories last week in the House and Tuesday in the Senate.
Mr. Bush did talk about issues of keen interest to the cattlemen, saying, for instance, that if foreign leaders “want to get the attention of the American people in a positive way, you open up your markets to U.S. beef.” But at least half his speech was devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan and the wider battle against terrorism, which he again insisted was linked to the Iraq campaign, despite his critics’ assertions to the contrary.
“The best way to protect this country is to defeat the enemy overseas, so we don’t have to face them here at home,” Mr. Bush said, to applause.
The president said the new push to secure Baghdad through reinforcements should be given a chance to succeed, not undermined by Congressional votes that might cause America’s foes to question its national will.
Mr. Bush also differed, as he has many times before, with those who say that he has falsely linked the Sept. 11 attacks to Iraq, and that the war there is a distraction from, rather than an integral part of, the fight against terrorism.
Alluding to a chilling new tactic by Iraqi insurgents, using children to lull security guards, Mr. Bush said, “That evil that uses children in a terrorist attack in Iraq is the same evil that inspired and rejoiced in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that evil must be defeated overseas so we don’t have to face them here again.
“If we cannot muster the resolve to defeat this evil in Iraq, America will have lost its moral purpose in the world. And we will endanger our citizens, because if we leave Iraq before the job is done, the enemy will follow us here.”
March 28, 2007
Reprisal Attacks Kill Dozens in Iraq
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
As many as 50 people were killed in what appeared to be reprisal attacks in Tal Afar after a double suicide-vehicle bombing there on Tuesday killed 85 people and wounded 150, Iraqi officials and a witness said today.
Armed attacks broke out against Sunnis in the Sunni neighborhood of Al Wahda, with Shiite Iraqi security forces suspected of taking part, they said.
“Some of the families of the victims were enraged, and with cooperation of some policemen they attacked the Sunni areas,” said a resident in the city, Muhie Muhammad Ebrahim. “I can say that a public slaughtering took place, but there was no reaction from the authorities.”
Twelve police officers suspected of taking part in the reprisal killings were arrested, said an official in the Iraqi army, who declined to be identified. And the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, ordered a committee be formed to investigate allegations the gunmen included some Iraqi police.
In the most destructive of the two suicide attacks in Tal Afar on Tuesday, the bomber was driving a truck partially filled with sacks of flour for bread that concealed his explosives. He started handing out the sacks to people, saying it was free aid. But as a crowd gathered around his vehicle, he detonated the bomb. Dr. Salah Qadou, the head of the hospital there, said today the death toll from the two attacks had risen to 85.
Today, ambulances circulated through the northern city to pick up bodies. The hospital was running low on medical supplies and blood. The police said that dozens of people demonstrated in front of the mayor’s office, calling for him and the police commander to resign.
The Iraqi army imposed a curfew and dispatched army vehicles to patrol the streets of the city, which was once cited by President Bush as an example of American military success in Iraq.
The American military said in a statement today that its forces were prepared to assist the Iraqis in enforcing the law in Tal Afar.
Tal Afar is a dusty and agrarian northern city where the American military established a large presence in 2005 by putting its forces closely together with Iraqi police and security forces in joint operations. Before then, in 2004, American forces had pushed into the area with a large offensive, then later withdrawn. The city, once seen as an entry point for foreign fighters, saw a dramatic drop in violence and was regarded as one of the few success stories of the American campaign.
But like many other cities in the country, Tal Afar, with a population of a quarter million, has been far from immune to large scale attacks, and there have been fierce battles as American troops have fought to wrest control of the area from groups affiliated with Al Qaeda and from other insurgents.
In November last year, two suicide bombers, one in a car and the other on foot, attacked an outdoor car market in the city, which is rife with insurgents, killing at least 20 people and wounding at least 42.
In September, a bomber wearing an vest filled with explosives killed 21 people and wounded 17 when he blew himself up near a line of people waiting to receive their allotment of cooking fuel, according to Iraqi state television.
In May, a suicide bomber in a pickup truck drove into a public market and blew himself up, killing 17 people and wounding as many as 65, officials said.
Kirk Semple, Alissa J. Rubin, Ahmad Fadam and Qais Mizher contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Kirkuk, Mosul and Ramadi.
March 28, 2007 Iran to Release Female Sailor; Britain Steps Up Pressure
By ALAN COWELL
LONDON, March 28 — Britain's dispute with Iran over 15 captured sailors and marines escalated sharply today when Britain froze all "bilateral business" with Tehran and Iran displayed some British prisoners on state television — an act condemned by the Foreign Office here as "completely unacceptable."
One of the captured sailors, Faye Turney, 26, the only woman among them, was shown wearing a black head-scarf and saying "obviously we trespassed into their waters." She also praised her captors as "very friendly, very hospitable and very thoughtful, nice people. They explained to us why we had been arrested."
Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, attending a meeting in Saudi Arabia, had indicated earlier that Ms. Turney, could be released soon. "There was no hurt or harm," Ms. Turney said in the television footage. "They were very, very compassionate."
Iranian authorities also made public what they said was a letter written Thursday by Ms. Turney to her family saying: "We were out in the boats when we were arrested by Iranian forces as we had apparently gone into Iranian waters. I wish we hadn't because then I would be home with you all right now. I'm so sorry we did because I know we wouldn't be here now if we hadn't. I want you all to know that I am well and safe.
"I am being well looked after, I am fed three meals a day and I'm in constant supply of fluids," the letter said. Her words were addressed in part to her three-year-old daughter Molly and husband Adam.
The circumstances in which she recorded her words and wrote the letter were not clear. Some of the captured Britons were shown in a room eating a meal with her, but it was also not clear the extent to which the tape had been edited. In one section she was wearing a black and white checkered head-dress and in another a black head scarf.
After the video tape was broadcast, Margaret Beckett, the British Foreign Secretary, said that she was concerned about "any indication of pressure on, or coercion of, our personnel."
British officials have been denied access to the captured sailors and their whereabouts were not disclosed. Britain renewed its demand on Thursday for the release of its sailors.
Ms. Turney's remarks contradicted insistence in London that the British sailors had been in Iraqi waters where they patrol under Iraqi and United Nations auspices to interdict smugglers and protect oil installations.
Earlier Prime Minister Tony Blair told parliament that the British sailors, captured on March 23, were acting legally and in Iraqi waters.
"It is now time to ratchet up international and diplomatic pressure in order to make sure that the Iranian government understands their total isolation on this issue," he told parliament.
The Royal Navy also took the highly unusual step of making public charts, photographs and previously secret navigational coordinates purportedly proving that the British sailors were 1.7 nautical miles — roughly 1.95 miles on land — inside Iraqi waters when they were apprehended at gun-point and forced into Iranian waters.
The toughened British posture heightened the sense of crisis that has sent oil prices soaring.
The Royal Navy's disclosures opened a coordinated diplomatic barrage by some of the most senior British officials, including Mr. Blair and Mrs. Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, who told parliament that Britain would "be imposing a freeze on all other official bilateral business with Iran until the situation is resolved."
"The Iranian authorities have so far failed to meet any of our demands or responded to our desire to resolve this issue quickly and quietly, through behind the scenes diplomacy," Mrs. Beckett said, explaining Britain's decision to go public and offer some kind of retaliation, if only symbolic.
The government had been under political pressure at home to show itself as more muscular after being accused in newspaper editorials of being timid toward Iran. At the same time, though, many analysts said Mr. Blair had embarked on a risky strategy that could backfire if Iran responded to pressure by digging in its heels and refusing to free its captives.
The decision by Iranian television to show footage of the 15 captives rekindled memories of a similar episode in 2004 when eight other British captives were paraded blindfolded on Iranian television.
Britain has little direct official bilateral business with Iran beyond sporting and cultural ties and some humanitarian assistance to refugees and earthquake victims, according to an assessment on the Foreign Office website (http://www.fco.gov.uk).
Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, visited Iran in 2004 to show concern after the Bam earthquake.
Britain's more significant diplomatic and political business with Iran is conducted as part of a troika of European nations along with France and Germany pressing Iran to limit its nuclear ambitions.
While the impact of the prohibition on official business was, therefore, unclear, it seemed to reflect the first formal reprisal by Britain in response to the seizure of its personnel, designed to show, in Mrs. Beckett's words to parliament, "the seriousness with which we regard these events."
"This is not going as far as breaking off diplomatic relations," said Lord Norman Lamont, the head of the British-Iranian Chamber of Commerce, "but it is upping the ante." In parliament, the government's actions received support from a broad consensus across party lines.
The publication of the British data followed a warning by Mr. Blair on Thursday that the dispute would enter a "different phase" if the sailors were not released. In parliament on Wednesday the Prime Minister called the seizure of the British personnel "completely unacceptable, wrong and illegal" and renewed calls for their immediate return.
Vice Admiral Charles Style told a news briefing that British authorities "unambiguously contest" Iranian assertions that the sailors were in Iranian waters. He also accused Iranian forces of ambushing the British naval personnel — seven Royal Marines and eight sailors. Vice Admiral Style did not offer to answer questions.
He said that, in secret diplomatic contacts, Iran had produced two conflicting sets of coordinates to bolster its case, the first placing the British soldiers in Iraqi waters where, Britain says, they were on a routine anti-smuggling patrol authorized by the United Nations and the Iraqi government.
An Iranian statement said Tehran had "sufficient evidence" to prove that the British sailors had penetrated 0.5 kilometers — roughly 500 yards — into Iranian waters.
Vice Admiral Style said the British boarding party in two inflatable boats had boarded an Indian-flagged naval vessel on March 23 after observing it unloading cars. He said the boarding took place at these coordinates: 29 degrees 50.36 minutes North, 04 degrees 43.08 minutes east. That placed it 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters, he said.
In diplomatic contacts last week, he added, Iran had provided Britain with an initial set of coordinates for the position of the boats that placed the incident in Iraqi waters.
"We pointed this out to them on Sunday in diplomatic contacts," Vice Admiral Style said. "After we did this they then provided a second set of coordinates that places the incident in Iranian waters" over two nautical miles away from where they were said to be by Britain, he said.
"It is hard to understand a legitimate reason for this change of coordinates," he said. The Navy said the sailors in two boats had formed a boarding party from H.M.S. Cornwall, a frigate patrolling in Iraqi waters.
Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul
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