Necessary News

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Foreign Fighters Turn Afghanistan Into A Bigger Bloodbath

• Opium production that’s skyrocketing. Violence surging by more than 30 percent during the last year. A spike in suicide bombings. These are just some of the ways that the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse. And now, we’re sad to say, we’ve got another mark to chalk up on that wall: The influx of foreign fighters. [Mic Check] [New York Times]
• Both Afghan and American officials have reported that several hundred foreign militants have gravitated to the region to fight alongside the Taliban this year. It’s been the largest influx since 2001.
• Here’s the major problem with foreign fighters: They are not only bolstering the ranks of the insurgency. They are more violent, uncontrollable and extreme than even their locally bred allies, officials on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border warn. Additionally, the fighters are also helping to change the face of the Taliban from a movement of hard-line Afghan religious students into a loose network that now includes a growing number of foreign militants as well as disgruntled Afghans and drug traffickers.
• So where are these rogue warriors coming from? A few different places. Officials claim that foreign fighters are coming from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, various Arab countries and perhaps also Turkey and western China.
• Finally, what kind of numbers are we looking at? Officials aren’t sure. Gauging the exact number of Taliban and foreign fighters in Afghanistan is difficult, Western analysts say. At any given time, the Taliban can field up to 10,000 fighters, they said, but only 2,000 to 3,000 are highly motivated, full-time insurgents. That said, five to 10 percent of full-time insurgents — roughly 100 to 300 combatants — are believed to be foreigners.

From bad to worse to downright deadly.

In The Line Of Water: 500,000 Iraqis Threatened By Crumbling Dam

• Unless a crumbling dam in Iraq is fixed, it could collapse and “unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country.” [Washington Post]
• Trouble is, it’s hard to fix much of anything in Iraq these days.
• An assessment by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that the Mosul dam had an “unacceptable annual failure probability” and called it “the most dangerous dam in the world.”
• A terrifying proposition: collapse of the dam would “drown Mosul [a city of almost 2 million people] under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet.”
• But U.S. projects to shore-up the dam have been ineffective and marred with waste and incompetence.
• The Office of the Inspector General for Iraq has found that the “little of the reconstruction effort led by the U.S. Embassy has succeeded in improving the dam.”
• For example, the U.S. paid a Turkish company $635,000 to build cement silos to reinforce the dam but they’ve done “so little and such poor-quality work that its project may have to be restarted.”
• Despite spending over $34 million so far, inspector general Stuart Bowen Jr found that “The expenditures of the money have yielded no benefit yet.”
• Another problem is security. Another recent IG report found that “the shaky overall state of security is still impeding the nation’s $100 billion recovery and rebuilding effort” in Iraq. [AP]

A disaster wating to happen...in the middle of a disaster.

Iraqi Government: U.S. Contractors Aren’t Immune To Our Laws

• First, some essentials you’ll need to know — starting with Blackwater. The U.S. military contractor (read: mercenary group) had over 1,000 employees in Iraq and at least $800 million in government contracts on September 16th of this year, when a widely-publicized shooting involving the company’s guards left 17 Iraqi civilians dead. Since then, the contractor’s faced harsh scrutiny in the press — and in the eyes of the Iraqi government. [Mic Check]
• On Monday evening, the plot thickened as the Associated Press learned that “the State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month’s deadly shooting.” Three senior U.S. law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that all the Blackwater bodyguards involved — both in the vehicle convoy and in at least two helicopters above — were given the legal protection as investigators from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security sought to find out what happened. The bureau is an arm of the State Department. [AP]
• The immunity deal threatens to delay a criminal inquiry into the Sept. 16 killings and could undermine any effort to prosecute security contractors for their role in the incident that has infuriated the Iraqi government.
• Yesterday, though, the Iraqi government announced that it would have none of that “immunity” nonsense. The country’s government approved draft legislation lifting immunity for foreign private security companies, sending the measure to parliament. [AP]
• The draft law would overturn an immunity order known as Decree 17 that was issued by L. Paul Bremer, who ran the American occupation government until June 2004.
• Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has promised to push through the measure amid growing public anger over the Blackwater shootings in Baghdad and a series of other Iraqi civilian deaths allegedly at the hands of foreign contractors.
• The State Department, though, is staying mum. State Department officials declined to confirm or deny that immunity had been granted. Additionally, Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell has declined comment about the U.S. investigation.

We smell a showdown.

President Bush Wants Congress To Stop Investigating The Bad Guys

• President Bush yesterday attacked Congress, lashing out at them for “wasting” so much time on “a constant string of investigations.”
• We think he’s talking about you, Rep. Henry Waxman. The Washington Post recently called our favorite Mustache of Justice “the Bush administration’s worst nightmare: a Democrat in the majority with subpoena power and the inclination to overturn rocks.” [Washington Post]
• We thought we’d take a look at some of Waxman’s ongoing investigations. Which of these would you want him to drop? Check out his recent hearings into:
• …Whether the State Department turned a blind eye to contractor corruption, fraud and abuse in Iraq. [AP]
• …Whether U.S. contractor Blackwater “may have engaged in significant tax evasion, failing to withhold and pay millions of dollars in Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, and related taxes, and sought to conceal its conduct from Congress and law enforcement officials.” [House Oversight Committee]
• …Whether State Department Inspector General Howard J. Krongard was involved in Very Bad Things like blocking investigations into the poor workmanship that brought down the U.S. embassy in Iraq. [Washington Post][NY Times][Washington Post]
• …What happened to the millions of suddenly missing White House e-mails. [NY Times]
• …The truth about what happened in the friendly-fire death of Pat Tillman and the ensuing coverup. [Washington Post]
• …Why FEMA put homeless Katrina victims into toxic trailers filled with formaldehyde fumes then lied about it. [Washington Post]
• …Whether it was illegal for the Department of Transportation to try to influence state officials into putting pressure on the EPA to not grant California’s emissions waiver. [CBS News]
• And much, much more!

Keep it up, MOJ!

Product Safety Chief Wants Less Money For Her Agency

The Story

• It’s almost like she hates her job. [NY Times]
• After a wave of recalls and product safety concerns spanning everything from toothpaste to lead-contaminated toys, Congress is set to tackle the problem head on.
• But Nancy A. Nord, chief of Bush’s Consumer Product Safety Commission, rejects the solutions Congress is offering.
• A new bill before Congress would “double the agency’s budget, to $141 million, over the next seven years, raise staffing levels by about 20 percent, and give the commission broad new powers to police the marketplace. It would raise the cap on the maximum penalties to $100 million, from $1.8 million.”
• Nord, in a letter to Congress, openly opposed the bill that would give her new powers, a bigger budget, and more support staff.
• Her complaints largely mirror those of many industry officials, who are concerned about fines and new procedures, but “in other areas, like whistle-blower protection, her complaints went beyond those of industry.”
• In the last two months, the toy industry has recalled over 13 million toys. The number of full-time officials at the CPSC tasked with testing toy safety? 1.
• Says Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR), “It’s hard for me to know if it’s just ideological or she is just expressing the wishes of the administration ... either way it comes to the same conclusion, and that is that they say they want more resources, but they are very reluctant to accept those resources.”
• Nord is just the latest in a long string of Bush appointees to regulatory agencies that put the needs of the industry they’re regulating above health and safety of the people they’re tasked to protect. [Bush Cronyism]

The Audio

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

• “There are toys being sold in our stores now that are untested and unsafe.”
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• “Some of the Thomas The Train toys are dangerous to the health of our children. Why should it be up to the moms and dads to be able to figure that out? We have a Consumer Protection Commission to do that.”
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• “One person assigned to testing toys, assuring that they are safe, and the chairman of the commission saying she is opposed to expanding the authority or the funding. That is not what American parents want to hear.”
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Just another fox in the hen house.

Good News, Bad News

Scientists recently discovered the world’s oldest living creature: a 410-year-old clam found off the coast of Iceland. Then they killed it. [Fox News]

Bad News: No more birthdays for a clam which was already a teenager when Jamestown was established.

Good News: CHOW-DAH!

Quote Of The Day

“It was at that moment I saw Ari Fleischer in a totally new light: He was a modern day Moses leading his people out of slavery, into freedom.”

—Right-wing blogger and Pajamas Media writer “Webutante,” on former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer leading Jews to the Republican Party.

Speed Round

AUDIO: TIME’S A-WASTIN’

President Bush says that Congress has been wasting its time with those pesky little measures meant to bring the troops home. [Think Progress]

AUDIO: NEW VA SECRETARY

Three months after the last one resigned, Bush finally gets around to nominating a new Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Dr. James Peake. [Think Progress]

AUDIO: US VS. THEM

President Bush reveals the big difference between his Republican allies and the Democrats: “They believe in raising taxes, we don’t.” Bush also believes in 1.3 trillion dollar useless wars and tax cuts for the uber-rich.

WAR

Suicide bomber kills seven people within a mile of Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf. [NY Times]

TORTURE STUDY

In a 4-page letter to Congress, Attorney Gen. Nominee Mike Mukasey still isn’t sure if waterboarding is torture but pledges to study the issue. [AP]

VETS

Meet Lt. Gen. James Peake, the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs. [NY Times]

YOU SAY TOMATO

Would the EU Constitution by any other name require a British referendum? …Not as a treaty. [BBC]

$43.5 BILLION

Amount the government spent on intelligence in 2007. [USA Today]

SHUT IT DOWN

The U.N. expert on human rights is urging the U.S. to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Now. [AP]

VEEP

Only Dick Cheney could get in trouble hanging out at a gun club under a Confederate Flag…in the North. [CBS News]

FLAG FLAP

Members of Congress are up in arms that the Department of Veterans Affairs last month banned flag folding at military funerals. [Fox News]

IDIOT

The “don’t tease me, bro” guy won’t face criminal prosecution. He’s still a dweeb. [WFTV]

REALLY, CONGRESSMAN?

“I don’t think anybody wants mail carriers and kids to get bitten by dogs.” Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI), perfecting the “state the obvious.” [The Hill]

HELP WANTED

After former CEO Stan O’Neal was told to pack his knives and leave, financial giant Merrill Lynch is on the lookout for a new chief. [AP]

HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A TROPICAL STORM

After taking 20+ lives in the Dominican Republic, tropical storm Noel heads for Bermuda. [AP]

52%

The percentage of Americans who support a military strike against Iran. [Zogby International]