Democrat hopefuls sense victory lies in attacking war
The Democratic White House contenders mounted a withering onslaught on President George Bush in their first official debate of the 2004 campaign, but came up with nothing to threaten Howard Dean’s status as the front-runner.
The 90-minute debate, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, had been expected to produce the first concentrated attacks on Dean from his rivals, especially the Massachusetts senator John Kerry, regarded as perhaps the most dangerous challenger to Mr. Bush in the general election, but whose campaign has been eclipsed by the combative former governor of Vermont.
Instead Kerry held his fire, and the eight candidates joined forces to lash Bush for his handling of Iraq and the economy, the two issues they sense could open the way to the recapture of the White House next November.
Only Joe Lieberman — who despite his high name-recognition after the 2000 election has had scant impact on the race thus far — went for the former Vermont governor head on. As well as challenging Dean’s trade policies (“We cannot build a wall around America”) he took issue with Dean on the size of the US troop contingent in Iraq.
Dean insisted that any increase in troop strength in Iraq should come from other countries, adding: “Our troops need to come home.” But Lieberman, one of the strongest Democrat supporters of the war, flatly disagreed, saying: “I would send more troops. The troops that are there need more protection.” (Independent (UK))

Ex-envoy criticizes Bush’s postwar policy
A former US commander for the Middle East, who still consults for the State Department, has blasted the Bush administration’s handling of postwar Iraq, saying it lacked a coherent strategy, a serious plan and sufficient resources.
“There is no strategy or mechanism for putting the pieces together,” said retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, and, in an impassioned speech to several hundred Marine and Navy officers, he said, “we’re in danger of failing.”
Zinni’s comments were especially striking because he endorsed President Bush in the 2000 campaign, shortly after retiring from active duty, and serves as an adviser to the State Department on anti-terror initiatives in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Zinni’s comments to the joint meeting in Arlington of the US Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association, two professional groups for officers, were greeted warmly by his audience, with prolonged applause at the end. Some officers bought tapes and compact discs of the speech to give to others. (Washington Post)

100,000 could lose housing subsidies
More than 100,000 low-income families could lose their rent subsidies next year under a spending bill passed today by a Senate committee and recently approved by the House, housing advocates said.
The advocates cited a new study by the Congressional Budget Office.
If the nonpartisan budget office’s forecast of housing costs next year proves accurate, it could be the first time in the 30-year history of the federal housing voucher program that Congress has failed to renew all existing vouchers. Under the program, known as Section 8, the vouchers pay the difference between the market rent of an apartment and 30 percent of a household’s income. Republican appropriators in the House say they provided a 7 percent increase in spending for the vouchers this year, considerably more than the 4 percent that the Bush administration recommended. Representative James T. Walsh, the New York Republican who is chairman of the subcommittee that controls spending on housing, said he believed that amount would be adequate to renew all vouchers, though he had not seen the new figures from the budget office.
Housing advocates said rapidly rising costs combined with high unemployment had pushed up the costs of subsidies beyond the increase approved by the House. The cost of a voucher increases when rents go up and income levels decrease. (New York Times)

Activists claim victory with Estrada withdrawal
Prominent civil-rights groups claimed victory after attorney Miguel Estrada, nominated by President George W. Bush to a key judgeship two years ago, announced he was withdrawing his name from consideration.
Bush and Republican lawmakers reacted to the announcement angrily. Bush said the Democrats’ efforts to prevent a vote on his nomination were “disgraceful.”
Civil-rights groups and Democrats had charged that Estrada was a “far-right stealth nominee” who had deliberately avoided making public statements or publishing his views in order to make himself less controversial. His professional associations and work in the Justice Department under Attorney-General John Ashcroft, according to his critics, suggested strong ideological views, suspicions compounded by the Department’s refusal to provide access to his work records.
Estrada similarly refused to answer many questions about his views during his confirmation hearings. Asked, for example, whether he disagreed with any of the Supreme Court’s decisions over the last 40 years, the Honduran native and Harvard Law School graduate said he was not in a position to give such an opinion. He repeatedly refused to be drawn out on his positions on civil-liberties issues. (OneWorld)

Engineers report: US is crumbling
Just weeks after a massive blackout cut power to tens of millions of people in North America, a national engineering group warned on Thursday that much of the rest of the United States’ infrastructure is also in dire need of overhaul.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) said the total five-year cost of the work needed on items from roads to drinking water systems and schools has surged to $1.6 trillion from the $1.3 trillion it estimated two years ago.
Electricity industry experts blamed aging infrastructure for last month’s cascading blackout in cities across the Midwest and Northeast United States and the Canadian province of Ontario.
The engineering group went further, assessing 12 types of infrastructure and finding the condition of roads, transit, energy, drinking water, waste water, dams and navigable waterway infrastructure had worsened over the last two years.
No progress had been made in improving schools, bridges, the aviation system, or solid waste and hazardous waste infrastructure.
“Quite simply, we’re behaving like the rabbit in the old fable, napping while everyone else catches up,” ASCE President Tom Jackson told a news briefing. (Reuters)

261 music file swappers sued
The recording industry filed 261 lawsuits against individual Internet music file sharers on Sept. 8 and announced an amnesty program for people who admit they illegally share music files through the Internet.
The federal lawsuits and amnesty program are the latest moves by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in its fight against illegal music file trading on the Internet, which record companies blame for a 31 percent drop in compact disc sales since mid-2000.
Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, said civil lawsuits filed were against “major offenders” who made available an average of 1,000 copyrighted song files.
Sherman also announced the Clean Slate Program that grants amnesty to users who voluntarily identify themselves, erase downloaded music files and promise not to share music on the Internet.
“We’re willing to hold out our version of an olive branch,” Sherman said.
The RIAA said it will not sue users who sign and have notarized a Clean Slate Program affidavit.
But the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has criticized the RIAA’s use of copyright subpoenas, urged file swappers to ignore the amnesty offer.
“Rather than demanding that 60 million people sharing music files turn themselves in with a so-called ‘amnesty’ program, the recording industry should take this opportunity to make file-sharing legal in exchange for a reasonable fee,” Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Wendy Seltzer said in a statement.
The group cautioned that RIAA doesn’t represent all music copyright owners and couldn’t ensure that people admitting guilt through the amnesty program wouldn’t be sued by others claiming copyright infringement. (CNN)

White House approved departure of Saudis, ex-aide says
Top White House officials personally approved the evacuation of dozens of influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama bin Laden, from the United States in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when most flights were still grounded, a former White House adviser said today.
The adviser, Richard Clarke, who ran the White House crisis team after the attacks but has since left the Bush administration, said he agreed to the extraordinary plan because the Federal Bureau of Investigation assured him that the departing Saudis were not linked to terrorism. The White House feared that the Saudis could face “retribution” for the hijackings if they remained in the United States, Clarke said.
Clarke first made his remarks about the plan in an article in Vanity Fair due out Sept. 4, and he expanded on those remarks today in an interview and in Congressional testimony. The White House said today that it had no comment on Clarke’s statements. (New York Times)

Anti-war US marine sentenced to six months in jail
A military jury found an anti-war US Marine reservist guilty of unauthorized absence and sentenced him to six months in jail for refusing to report to his unit during the Iraq war, his lawyer said on Sunday.
The verdict was less than the desertion charge the US military had sought, which could have put Lance Cpl. Stephen Funk behind bars for a year, but defense attorney Stephen Collier said he would still appeal for a lighter sentence.
Funk, 21, has said he was the target of unfair prosecution because he was a conscientious objector who spoke at anti-war rallies. He was the only one of 28 Marine conscientious objectors to the Iraq war to face prosecution, but the military said that was because he was the only who did not report for duty.
Collier said Funk, who was immediately sent to jail, took the jury’s decision well.
“Stephen was ready to serve some time. He knew this was likely to happen,” he told Reuters.
Funk also will receive a bad conduct discharge from the military, Collier said. (Reuters)

Customs Dept. sells drug-laden cars
When Adrian Rodriguez heard a rattling noise in the 1991 Volkswagen Passat he had bought at a US Customs auction, he hoped to fix it cheaply by taking it to his mechanic in Tijuana, Mexico. But hidden under the back seat, the mechanic found 33lbs of marijuana. Police were called and Rodriguez was put in a Tijuana jail, only being freed a month later.
The experience has put Rodriguez, a social worker, in the middle of a campaign to overhaul how American authorities inspect the vehicles seized at border crossings and in drug busts which they subsequently sell at auction.
US Customs, which auctions about 5,000 vehicles a year, suspended sales nationwide last month and promised new inspections, requiring that dogs search every vehicle when seized and again when put up for sale, and submitting nearly all to X-rays.
Several Mexicans are suing the US Treasury, which oversees Customs, for being jailed after unwittingly buying drug-laden cars. (Independent (UK))