Tag: 4@4

1. I don’t have to write that the G8 ‘leaders’ are out of touch, they shout it themselves from behind their gilded security bubble.

   G8 leaders give middle finger to the world… again

   The NY Times reports G8 global warming talks leave few concrete goals. “The statement issued by the industrialized Group of 8 pledged to ‘move toward a carbon-free society’ by seeking to cut worldwide emissions of heat-trapping gases in half by 2050. But the statement did not say whether that baseline would be emissions at 1990 levels, or the less ambitious baseline of current levels, already 25 percent higher.”

   Even with this fuzzy goal, the G8 ‘leaders’ say the world has 40 years. While many scientists, such as NASA climate scientist, James Hansen, say we have only one year left to act.

   While the LA Times reports the G8 summit largely ignores economic woes. “President Bush and leaders of seven of the other wealthiest nations face a triple whammy of economic woes: a global credit crunch, soaring food prices and spiraling oil costs. But in three days… there was little in the way of fresh initiatives on how to get the world’s economy back on track.” As usual, they wined and dined, while saying ‘Let them eat cake’ to most everyone else.

2. U.S. Troops in Iraq Face A Powerful New Weapon

   The Washington Post reports that suspected Shiite fighters in Iraq opposed to the U.S. occupation are now “using powerful rocket-propelled bombs to attack U.S. military outposts in recent months, broadening the array of weapons used against American troops.”

   U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs. They are propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by 107mm rockets. They are often fired by remote control from the backs of trucks, sometimes in close succession. Rocket-propelled bombs have killed at least 21 people, including at least three U.S. soldiers, this year…

   U.S. military officials say IRAM attacks, unlike roadside bombings and conventional mortar or rocket attacks, have the potential to kill scores of soldiers at once. IRAMs are fired at close range, unlike most rockets, and create much larger explosions. Most such attacks have occurred in the capital, Baghdad.

   The use of the rocket-propelled bombs reflects militiamen’s ability to use commonly available materials and relatively low-tech weaponry to circumvent security measures that have cost the U.S. military billions of dollars.

   The longer this occupation goes, the more bankrupt the United States will become. For all our technology, the U.S. military is still being defeated by low tech attacks. A July 2008 report, “Actions Needed to Reduce Carryover at Army Depots” (pdf) from the GAO found that the U.S. military cannot repair equipment fast enough in Iraq and Afghanistan to meet the demands of battle. Each day we remain in Iraq and Afghanistan is a day we continue to dig our nation’s grave deeper.

Four at Four continues with America’s failures in Pakistan and a scientist that is harnessing rising oceans to grow a desert crop.

1. The LA Times reports Six people are dead in attack on U.S. consulate in Istanbul. “Gunmen today attacked the U.S. consulate here, sparking a gun battle that left three Turkish police officers and the three assailants dead… It was the most serious attack in several years on a foreign diplomatic mission in Turkey.”

   According to the Washington Post, the American ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, call the attack “‘an obvious act of terrorism’ … ‘This was an attack on the American diplomatic establishment here,’ Wilson said in an appearance before reporters in Ankara, the Turkish capital. ‘… Our countries will stand together and confront this, as we have in the past.'” Abdullah Gul, the president of Turkey, also describe it as a terrorist attack.”

   “Neither U.S. or Turkish officials would speculate on who was responsible for the attack… Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay told reporters late this afternoon there still was no claim of responsibility. He said all of the attackers were Turkish nationals.”

2. The NY Times reports the Federal Reserve sees economic turmoil persisting deep into next year. “Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, publicly indicated on Tuesday that he believes the problems will persist into next year when he outlined a series of steps the Fed is considering in the coming months… Bernanke also recommended that Congress grant the Fed broader authority to monitor and supervise the financial markets to assure greater stability in the future.”

   The economy will continue to do badly for all the known reasons: cratering housing market, skyrocketing oil prices, and titanic federal debt brought about by the worst president ever and his wars.

   The Washington Post reports that “Some outside experts argue that changes such as the ones Bernanke advocated yesterday could create more problems than they solve.” No doubt. The Fed wants more authority to clean up the mess they made and fed. This economic misery was done on purpose to shock the system in order to increase liquidity for easier looting. Do not trust Bernanke or Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The bailouts are and will continue to be for the wealthy.

Four at Four continues with the unmitigated missile threat to airplanes and Guantanamo appeals.

1. The Washington Post reports a Narrow reading of the Clean Water Act thwarts enforcement. “An official administration guidance document on wetlands policy is undermining enforcement of the Clean Water Act” according to a memo written by Granta Y. Nakayama, the Environmental Protection Agency’s chief enforcement officer.

   As relayed in his memo, “Nakayama and his staff concluded that between July 2006 and December 2007, EPA’s regional offices had decided not to pursue potential Clean Water Act violations in 304 cases ‘because of jurisdictional uncertainty.’ … The administration’s guidance instructs federal officials to focus on the ‘relevant reach’ of a tributary, which translates into a single segment of a stream. In the memo, Nakayama argued that this definition ‘isolates the small tributary’ and ‘ignores longstanding scientific ecosystem and watershed protection principles critical to meeting the goals’ of the Clean Water Act.”

2. TPM Muckraker reports Waxman threatens Attorney General with contempt. “House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) is wielding more than his gavel against Attorney General Michael Mukasey. In a letter to the AG today, Waxman brought out the big guns, stating that the Committee would vote to hold him in contempt on July 16, if he failed to produce a report on an interview with Vice President Cheney regarding the Valerie Plame leak scandal.”

   Of course these threats would be a lot less hollow sounding, if Congress starting finding these officials in “inherent contempt“.

3. The NY Times reports Two former secretaries of state offer plan to revamp the War Powers Act. Former Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and James Baker “have declared the War Powers Resolution of 1973 obsolete and proposed a new system of closer consultation between the White House and Congress before American forces go into battle.”

   Their proposal would require the president to consult lawmakers before initiating combat lasting longer than a week except in rare cases requiring emergency action. Congress, for its part, would have 30 days to approve or disapprove of the military action.

   The plan would create a new committee of Congressional leaders and relevant committee chairmen, with a full-time staff with access to military and intelligence material. The president would be required to consult with the group in advance of any extended strike.

   Of course, this would be moot if Congress actually used the powers it has under the Constitution, specifically to declare and fund wars and hold the president accountable.

4. The LA Times reports a U.S. soldier was killed by roadside bomb near Baghdad. “An American soldier was killed this morning when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The military also announced the deaths of four private contractors in a similar attack the previous day in northern Iraq. Eight contractors were injured in that bombing, which occurred about 15 miles south of the city of Mosul.” The contractors’ nationalities was not disclosed by the military. 4,115 American troops have now been killed in Iraq.

   The Ventura County Star reports that a Blogger is kicked out of Iraq province for war photos. After posting a picture of a dead Marine lying on his back with “his face damaged beyond recognition because of the blast” from a suicide bombin on his website zoriah.net, the U.S. Marines “immediately ‘disembedded'” photojournalist and blogger Zoriah Miller from the unit he was with and “barred from working with the military in Anbar”. Marine commanders felt he violated a “trust”.

   “I just feel this war has become so sanitized that it was important to show,” said Zoriah, who prefers to go by his first name. “My only discomfort is the idea that the family could accidentally stumble on it.” …

   “You’re a war photographer, but once you take a picture of what war is like then you get into trouble,” said Zoriah, a Denver native who has been in Iraq for much of the past year.

1. The Washington Post reports Bush plans Guantanamo closure with many detainees unlikely ever to face trial. “The Bush administration is developing a long-range plan to empty the Guantanamo Bay military prison that could include asking Congress to spell out procedures for scores of suspected terrorists whom the government does not plan to bring to trial… Under one scenario being considered by President Bush’s Cabinet, about 80 detainees would remain at the facility in Cuba to be tried by military commissions, and about 65 others would be turned over to their native countries”. Bush will ask Congress for legal procedures to transfer Guantanamo detainees to military or civilian prisons on the U.S. mainland. Roughly 265 detainees are at Guantanamo.

2. The NY Times reports the U.S. is in no shape to give advice, says Medvedev.

   Russia’s new president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, less swaggering than his predecessor but as touchy about criticism from abroad, said in an interview that an America in “essentially a depression” was in no position to lecture other countries on how to conduct their affairs…

   Mr. Medvedev made his comments on Tuesday in a meeting with a small group of foreign journalists a day after the American treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., appealed in Moscow for Russian investment in the United States. The symbolism of the visit resonated here, in that only a decade had passed since the Russian economy was in shambles and the country was desperate for Western aid…

Four at Four continues with George Washington’s childhood home and America’s oldest Independence Day parade.

1. Judge Rejects Bush’s View on Wiretaps
   By Eric Lichtblau, The New York Times

   A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the “exclusive” means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law.

   The judge, Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge for the Northern District of California, made his findings in a ruling on a lawsuit brought by an Oregon charity. The group says it has evidence of an illegal wiretap used against it by the National Security Agency under the secret surveillance program established by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

   The Justice Department has tried for more than two years to kill the lawsuit, saying any surveillance of the charity or other entities was a “state secret” and citing the president’s constitutional power as commander in chief to order wiretaps without a warrant from a court under the agency’s program.

2. A brief update on Iraq. McClatchy Newspapers report, Iraq claims negotiation progress with the U.S.. Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq’s foreign minister, said both sides negotiated “an acceptable result’ on the immunity of mercenaries from Iraqi law. “He said it now was agreed that the Iraqi judiciary “should have the final decision” on the issue of arresting U.S. citizens.”

   “The Americans accepted after very deep study and because of the sensitivity of the issue that the private security companies, which our people have suffered from in more than one incident, are not included in the legal immunity,” he said.

   Remaining issues include control over Iraq’s airspace and the number of permanent U.S. bases in Iraq. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is not commenting on the negotiations, but Bush has said that he wants the security agreement concluded by the end of July.

   And the CS Monitor reports Aid for Iraqi refugees is often redirected in Jordan. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is seeking donors to help meet the needs of Iraqi war refugees in Jordan, 61 percent of UNHCR’s budget is being given directly to Jordan. This is described as “trickle-down development” intended on paper to help refugees by helping their host nation.

   “But with budgets squeezed by rising fuel and food prices, some experts are questioning how much Iraqis are benefiting from international funds that are not going directly to refugee services but instead to the Jordanian government. While aid agencies are focused on the benefits of the work Jordan’s government has done, some officials worry that not meeting Iraqis basic needs could disastrously shatter expectations.”

   Since when did trickle-down anything work?

Four at Four continues with troop shortages in Afghanistan thanks to Bush’s Iraq war and a World Bank biofuels report being suppressed to keep from embarrassing Bush.

1. The NY Times reports that a Deepening cycle of job loss is seen lasting into 2009. “Joblessness has accelerated, and employers have slashed working hours even for those on their payrolls, shrinking the size of paychecks just as workers need them the most.”

   “It’s a slow-motion recession,” said Ethan Harris, chief United States economist for Lehman Brothers. “In a normal recession, things kind of collapse and get so weak that you have nowhere to go but up. But we’re not getting the classic two or three negative quarters. Instead, we’re expecting two years of sub-par growth. Growth that’s not enough to generate jobs. It’s kind of a chronic rather than an acute pain.”

   Nationally, unemployment, not including the jobless, those bumped down to part-time, and those who have given up looking for work, was 5.5 percent in May. “Add in those people and the so-called underemployment rate rises to 9.7 percent”.

2. The Washington Post reports Whistle-Blower suits languish at the Justice Department.

   More than 900 cases alleging that government contractors and drugmakers have defrauded taxpayers out of billions of dollars are languishing in a backlog that has built up over the past decade because the Justice Department cannot keep pace with the surge in charges brought by whistle-blowers, according to lawyers involved in the disputes.

   The issue is drawing renewed interest among lawmakers and nonprofit groups because many of the cases involve the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rising health-care payouts, and privatization of government functions — all of which offer rich new opportunities to swindle taxpayers…

   At issue in most of the cases is whether companies knowingly sold defective products or overcharged federal agencies for items sold at home or offered to U.S. troops overseas. Under the Civil War-era False Claims Act, workers who file lawsuits alleging such schemes cannot discuss them or even disclose their existence until Justice decides whether to step in.

   So the lawsuits are sealed until the Bush Justice Dept. decides to look at them… effectively giving them reason to drag their feet.

3. According to the LA Times, the U.S. spies on Iraqi army. “The stepped-up surveillance reflects breakdowns in trust and coordination between the two forces. Officials said it was part of an expanded intelligence effort launched after American commanders were surprised by the timing of the Iraqi army’s violent push into Basra three months ago.”

   “It suggests that we don’t have complete confidence in their chain of command, or in their willingness to tell us what they’re going to do because they may fear that we may try to get them not to do it,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a website about intelligence and military issues…

   “The bad news is we’re spying on Iraqis,” said the former military official. “The good news is that we have to.”

   See? Anyway you slice it, it’s all Good News from Iraq™.

4. The Star Tribune notes that Clotheslines: Public opinion on clotheslines is becoming more favorable. “Clotheslines save money, conserve electricity and burn calories.” But, “They have also been banned in several suburbs and neighborhoods” because HOAs believe hanging laundry is “low-class” and disgusting. HOA members believe clotheslines lower property values. “Homeowners associations all over the U.S. and Canada restrict clotheslines to the back yard, or ban them outright.”

   “Lately, though, there have been signs that public opinion is starting to swing the other way. Towns and associations are starting to reverse those laws — primarily on the East Coast and in Canada. In April, for instance, the premier of Ontario grandly lifted the ban for the entire province. Southampton, N.Y., on Long Island, repealed its six-year-old ban in late May.”

   A positive sign. Terra Pass blog has a spreadsheet you can use to estimate how much money and C02 you could save by line drying your clothes.

1. The Washington Post reports Judges cite need for reliable evidence to hold detainees. “A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit wrote in a 39-page opinion released yesterday that tribunals and courts must be able to assess whether evidence is reliable before determining the fate of detainees.” In the case of Huzaifa Parhat, a member of the Muslim Uighur movement in western China, this did not happen and the militay has detained him as a enemy combatant base on dubious, classified evidence.

   The judges were particularly concerned with government assertions that the evidence was reliable because it was repeated in separate documents and that officials would not have included the information if it were not dependable.

   “Lewis Carroll notwithstanding, the fact the government has ‘said it thrice’ does not make an allegation true,” wrote Judge Merrick B. Garland, quoting from Carroll’s poem “The Hunting of the Snark.”

2. The NY Times reports Sen. Barack Obama would expand faith-based program which allowed federal money to be spent on “religious-based initiatives that are intended to fight poverty and perform the work of social services.” Obama is “seeking support among relatively moderate evangelicals”. In prepared remarks, Obama said:

   “The fact is, the challenges we face today – from saving our planet to ending poverty – are simply too big for government to solve alone. We need all hands on deck.”

3. The Guardian reports Afghanistan troop deaths outnumber those in Iraq. More U.S. and NATO troops were killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq this June. “At least 45 international troops, including 27 from the US and 13 British, died in Afghanistan last month, compared with 31 international soldiers killed in Iraq, of whom 29 were from the US.”

4. The Washington Post reports A former CIA agent with a 22-year career says the CIA ignored facts about Iran’s nuclear program. “As a native of the Middle East and a fluent speaker of both Farsi and Arabic, he had been assigned undercover work in the Persian Gulf region, where he successfully recruited an informant with access to sensitive information about Iran’s nuclear program”.

   He says “he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb.” He filed a motion in federal court “asking the government to declassify legal documents describing what he says was a deliberate suppression of findings on Iran that were contrary to agency views at the time.”

   According to his attorney, Roy Krieger, “On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all.”

1. Seymour Hersh, writing for The New Yorker, reports on the Bush administration’s secret moves in Iran for “Preparing the Battlefield. Congress agreed to George W. Bush’s request of up to $400 million “to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran… designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities… include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.”

   Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed.

   The highly classified funding was approved by the Democratic members of the “Gang of Eight”: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller, and House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes. “In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership… were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran”. Even though Bush’s funding request came at the same time the December 2007, National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was released ” that concluded that Iran had halted its work on nuclear weapons in 2003.”

   The Pentagon, both the military and civilian leadership, has been pushing back against White House suggestions for military action against Iran. According to Hersh:

   A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.”

   Former head of U.S. Central Command, Admiral William Fallon, was another critic of the Bush administration’s plans for a military strike against Iran. Fallon was forced to resign in March. He told Hersh:

   “Too many people believe you have to be either for or against the Iranians,” he told me. “Let’s get serious. Eighty million people live there, and everyone’s an individual. The idea that they’re only one way or another is nonsense.”

   When it came to the Iraq war, Fallon said, “Did I bitch about some of the things that were being proposed? You bet. Some of them were very stupid.”

   Nevertheless, Congress approved of the money for Bush’s covert war campaign and since these are covert military actions, unlike CIA operations, the Bush administration’s legal “interpretation” is that Congress does not need to be kept informed because it would interfere with the role of the commander in chief to direct combat forces. “As a result, Congress has been given only a partial view of how the money it authorized may be used.”

   “In recent months, according to the Iranian media, there has been a surge in violence in Iran; it is impossible at this early stage,” but it is not yet known if American covert activities are responsible, nor is possible “to assess their impact on the Iranian leadership.” However, what is known is the White House is relying on “questionable operatives” and “possible lethal action inside Iran”.

   Responding to the story, the Washington Post reports the Bush administration has “denied that U.S. forces were engaged in operations inside Iran.”

Four at Four continues with the capture bin Laden (or not), the business of war for oil, and the Great Lakes compact.

America is doomed. Get out while you still can.

1. Surprise! Congress agrees to keep troops in Iraq until end of Bush’s term, reports The Guardian. “The Democratic-controlled US Congress late yesterday agreed to keep the military in Iraq until George Bush leaves office… The massive war bill faced little opposition… The war bill gives the Pentagon $162bn to continue Iraq operations well into next year… Approving war money for Bush with no strings”.

   Meanwhile in Iraq, the LA Times reports U.S. forces postpone handover in Iraqi province. “The U.S. military today postponed a weekend ceremony to hand over responsibility for security in Anbar province to the Iraqi government, citing forecasts of bad weather… The decision was not connected to a suicide bombing at a community meeting in the Anbar town of Karmah on Thursday that killed 20 people, including three U.S. Marines and two interpreters. High winds and dust storms are expected Saturday… The military provided no new date for the official handover but said it would take place soon.” Feel the “surge” working or is it just the wind?

2. Surprise! Is Obama turning out to be just another politician? asks McClatchy Newspapers. “From the beginning, Barack Obama’s special appeal was his vow to remain an idealistic outsider, courageous and optimistic, and never to shift his positions for political expediency, or become captive of the Inside-the-Beltway intelligentsia, or kiss up to special interests and big money donors. In recent weeks, though, Obama has done all those things.” Imagine that?

   “In Illinois, fellow politicians and civic activists who watched Obama as a state lawmaker say he’s a political realist who pivots when he needs to, but can be counted on to follow through on big promises… Obama’s aides dismiss criticism of his shifts as misunderstandings of his original positions, or merit-based decisions that Obama had never ruled out.”

3. Surprise! Key player in waterboarding policy ‘smug’ under questioning, according to the LA Times. “Glaring out through half-rimmed glasses, David S. Addington, a top aide to Vice President Cheney and alleged master-mind of the legal rationale for the harsh techniques, appeared before a House subcommittee.”

   David Addington and John Yoo

   Or, as Dana Milbank of the Washington Post puts it When anonymity fails, be nasty, brutish, and short.

   There he sat, hunched and scowling, at the witness table in front of the House Judiciary Committee: the bearded, burly form of the chief of staff and alter ego to the vice president — Cheney’s Cheney, if you will — and the man most responsible for building President Bush’s notion of an imperial presidency.

   David Addington was there under subpoena. And he wasn’t happy about it.

   Could the president ever be justified in breaking the law? “I’m not going to answer a legal opinion on every imaginable set of facts any human being could think of,” Addington growled. Did he consult Congress when interpreting torture laws? “That’s irrelevant,” he barked. Would it be legal to torture a detainee’s child? “I’m not here to render legal advice to your committee,” he snarled. “You do have attorneys of your own.”

   John Yoo was equally as helpful.

4. Surprise! The NY Times reports the Dow moves into bear territory as oil hits new high. “Shares fell as oil reached $142 a barrel, a new record, as the major indexes extended their losses a day after a painful 358-point plunge in the Dow.”

   This Recession, It’s Just Beginning, writes Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post.

   So much for that second-half rebound…

   It ain’t gonna happen. Not this summer. Not this fall. Not even next winter.

   This thing’s going down, fast and hard. Corporate bankruptcies, bond defaults, bank failures, hedge fund meltdowns and 6 percent unemployment. We’re caught in one of those vicious, downward spirals that, once it gets going, is very hard to pull out of.

   Only this will be a different kind of recession — a recession with an overlay of inflation.

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, Made it race against time. Once I built a railroad, now it’s done — Brother, can you spare a dime?

1. Reuters reports Bombs kill 40 in Iraq. “Bombs killed nearly 40 people in Iraq on Thursday, including 20 at a tribal council meeting in Anbar province just days before the U.S. military transfers control of security for the vast western region to Iraqi forces. The U.S. military said there were American troop casualties in the attack in Anbar but gave no details.”

   The LA Times adds “The mayor and tribal chief of Garma were killed along with 19 others when a bomber blew himself up during a meeting of sheiks and city leaders of the town about 15 miles northeast of Fallouja. Another 20 were injured.”

   The Anbar handover ceremony is now on hold, according to McClatchy Newspapers. “The bombing was carried out by a man wearing a suicide vest who struck at a meeting between tribal sheiks and American officials in a municipal building in Karmah… In a separate attack, insurgents targeted the governor of Nineveh province as he left the government headquarters in Mosul… Police said at least 18 Iraqis were killed and 62 injured in Mosul. The governor escaped unharmed, though his bodyguards were among the wounded”.

   The NY Times adds nearly 80 people were wounded in the attacks. “The bombings extended a pattern of multiple-casualty attacks in recent days that are clearly intended to kill local Iraqi leaders, in particular the Awakening Councils of Sunni tribal chieftains who have collaborated with American forces against Sunni insurgents.”

   According to McClatchy, “The latest bombings capped a bloody week with several attacks on local government offices and security targets that killed at least 10 U.S. service members, four U.S. government civilian employees, and scores of Iraqis.“

   The Washington Post reports on some of the Iraqis killed by U.S. forces this week., such as the death of four Iraqi family members. A “man, who sold propane gas for a living, was afraid thieves were in the vicinity.” He fired shots in the air with an AK-47 while “U.S. troops were conducting an operation in the area”.

   “U.S. soldiers then retreated and called in an airstrike, [Capt. Ahmed al-Azwawi, a police official in Samra,] said, killing the man, his wife, and two of their children.” The U.S. military said the man refused to comply with their orders.

   Azwawi identified the dead man as Afar Ahmed Zeidan. The police official said Zeidan’s wife, Khawlah Talab, and two of their children, Noor Afar Ahmed, 8, and Alaa Afar Ahmed, 6, were also killed. Another child in the house was taken to a hospital in critical condition, the police officials said.

Four at Four continues with more news from Iraq, the Afghan booming opium trade, and habeas corpus.

1. Yet another tactic by the Bush adminstration to circumvent evidence that conflicts with the desired outcome. The New York Times reports the White House refused to open Pollutants E-Mail.

   The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.

   The document, which ended up in e-mail limbo, without official status, was the E.P.A.’s answer to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required it to determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment, the officials said…

   Over the past five days, the officials said, the White House successfully put pressure on the E.P.A. to eliminate large sections of the original analysis that supported regulation, including a finding that tough regulation of motor vehicle emissions could produce $500 billion to $2 trillion in economic benefits over the next 32 years. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

   Both documents, as prepared by the E.P.A., “showed that the Clean Air Act can work for certain sectors of the economy, to reduce greenhouse gases,” one of the senior E.P.A. officials said. “That’s not what the administration wants to show. They want to show that the Clean Air Act can’t work.“

2. Here’s today war update. The LA Times reports Afghanistan attacks up 40% in east.

   Insurgent activity is increasing sharply in Afghanistan and has spread into once stable areas, with attacks up almost 40% in the eastern provinces alone, according to new American military data that have prompted alarm among senior Pentagon officials.

   Rising attacks against Afghan and NATO troops in the east represent the latest in a series of troubling developments that have led to markedly higher U.S. casualties and have prompted the military’s top leadership to order a review of its strategy in Afghanistan, including how to make do with limited numbers of American troops.

   This year, 50 U.S. service members have been killed in Afghanistan. “Last year’s troop buildup in Iraq and the overall strain on U.S. ground forces have made it almost impossible to increase force levels in Afghanistan.” The Pentegon now plans to redeploy about 1,000 U.S. soldiers now in Iraq to Afghanistan in October to serve as trainers.

   For the first time publicly, Afghanistan has accused the Pakistani intelligence service of having a role in Karzai assassination plot, according to the NY Times. Afghan President Hamid Karzai was targeted in a Kabul parade in April. Afghan authorities claim to have “evidence of the direct involvement of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, in the assassination attempt.” The ISI orchestrated the takeover of Afghanistain by the Taliban in the early 1990s.

   Meanwhile the deaths continue in Iraq. The NY Times reports Three U.S. soldiers were killed by bomb in Iraq. The soldiers and their interpreter were killed in Ninewa Province when a improvised roadside bomb detonated during the night. It was the “second large explosion to strike the Mosul region in a day and further evidence that Sunni Arab guerrillas remain very active in the northern city despite recent Iraqi military operations.” 25 American troops have been killed in June to date. There are approximately 150,000 U.S. service members deployed in Iraq.

Four at Four continues with the Supreme Court’s mixed decision on the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Everglades land deal between U.S. Sugar and Florida.

1. The Guardian reports GAO disputes claims from Pentagon report on Iraq.

   Baghdad has made scant progress toward self-sufficiency and the Bush administration has no workable strategy to achieve that goal, US government auditors said yesterday.

   The audit released by the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) painted a starkly different picture of the war than another report issued yesterday by the Pentagon…

   The GAO appeared to take a dim view of the administration’s top-secret Joint Campaign Plan (JCP) … The JCP “is not a strategic plan; it is an operational plan with limitations,” the government auditors concluded.

   The LA Times adds “the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that many political reconciliation efforts have stalled, that Iraq’s security forces remain largely unable to operate without U.S. assistance and that its central government has not fulfilled commitments to spend its own money on reconstruction. As a result, a new U.S. strategy for attaining military, political and economic goals is needed, the GAO said.”

   And this will come as a surprise to no one: “More broadly, the GAO said the Bush administration has not planned adequately for the drawdown of troops sent for last year’s buildup. Most of the additional forces are expected to leave Iraq by the end of July.” Of course Bush and McCain do not plan on the troops leaving… before the last drop of oil is gone.

2. The Washington Post reports Four Americans were killed in Baghdad blast. At about 9:20 a.m. an explosion rocked government building in Sadr city. Two U.S. soldiers and two American civilians working for the U.S. State department were killed in the blast.

   “At least one Iraqi was killed in the explosion. Wire service reports said as many as six Iraqis died. One U.S. soldier and three Sadr City district advisory council members also were wounded in the attack, the U.S. military said.”

   The LA Times reports the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber.

   A little more is now known about the attack earlier in the week that killed two U.S. soldiers in an ambush near Baghdad. According to the LA Times, “A gunman ambushed the soldiers and their interpreter, who was wounded in the exchange, as they left the Madaen municipal building”.

   The Interior Ministry in Baghdad identified the gunman as a local official and said he emerged from the building with the Americans, pulled a Kalashnikov assault rifle from the trunk of his car and sprayed them with bullets. The man’s colleagues sought cover as the Americans returned fire and killed him, according to the ministry, which oversees the police.

   But witnesses said the assailant was a former council member who joined the Sunni Muslim insurgency after he was ousted from his job in sectarian fighting in 2006.

   “He was sitting in his vehicle right in front of the municipal headquarters and opened fire with a Kalashnikov on the Americans as they were leaving the building,” said the owner of a nearby farm equipment store, who asked to be identified by a traditional nickname, Abu Ali. “Other Americans immediately opened fire on [the man] in his car, and he was killed instantly.”

   Elsewhere in Iraq, violence continues. “At least 15 people were killed and 40 injured Sunday when a woman blew herself up at the civic center in Baqubah, Diyala’s capital, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Hours later, a volley of mortar fire slammed into a checkpoint manned by Sunni Arab tribesmen hired by the U.S. military to guard their areas against militants. Police said at least 10 people were killed and 24 injured in that attack, which took place north of Baqubah.”

   Just a reminder the GAO found Bush “has no workable strategy” to move Iraq toward self-sufficiency or bring the troops home and McCain wants to continue the Bush strategy in Iraq.

Four at Four continues with news from the U.S. Conference of Mayors and possible research that could save the world’s frogs.