News roundup 03.23.2006

The long war in Iraq

CNN: "Special forces free Iraq hostages"

BBC News: "Baghdad suicide car bomb kills 15"

CNN's Nic Robertson reports four car bombs in Iraq thus far today, with another large explosion in Baghdad. Almost two dozen killed, almost four dozen wounded.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

WHEELING, W.Va. -- West Virginians cheered as President Bush maintained that the war in Iraq and his assertive foreign policy were "laying the foundation of peace for a generation to come.''

The Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- Military analysts said yesterday that President Bush's signal that US troops may remain in Iraq beyond his presidency reflected the reality on the ground: A long, hard fight against a still-robust insurgency.

But Democrats, seizing on the growing unpopularity of the war, vowed to use Bush's comments to make the case that the president has lost control of a war he initiated.

Senator Chuck Hagel in a New Hampshire radio interview via the Omaha World Herald:

"I think it is very uncertain as to what the world looks like in 2009," Hagel said when Laura Knoy, host of the public radio program "The Exchange," raised the issue.

"I was a little puzzled to see the president jump out that far to make that kind of a comment," he said. "I'm not sure that helps settle Americans' concerns, or settles them down in their lack of confidence in what they have been told about Iraq."

A.P. via the Philadelphia Inquirer:

BAGHDAD - Thousands of Shiite and Sunni families who once lived side by side have been forced from their homes and into a desperate exile, victims of the beginnings of ethnic cleansing a month after the bombing of an important Shiite shrine.

Al Jazeera: "Iraqi marriages defy civil war spectre"

The Financial Times:

The British military is combining the prospect of improved training with the threat of arrest in its attempts to create a more professional police force in southern Iraq, a key factor in speeding the transfer of security responsibility to Iraqis and eventual British troop withdrawals, the senior British officer in Iraq has told the Financial Times.

The New York Times: "Iraq Abuse Trial Is Again Limited to Lower Ranks"

Iran

Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post:

President Bush must treat the Iranian decision to open discussions in Baghdad as trap and opportunity. It is both. The administration should pursue this small opening in the Iranian wall with discipline and attention to maintaining a united front with its European and Asian partners. They are Iran's immediate targets.

IRNA:

Iran's acceptance of the proposal of Iraqi religious figure Ayatollah Abd al-Aziz Hakim to hold talk with the US on Iraq will boost hopes of restoring stability and security in Iraq and the region, said an Iranian lawmaker here on Sunday.

"Having realized the peculiar limitations it faces in Iraq, Iran and the region, the US is now willing to engage Iran," said a member of Majlis' National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Reza Talaienik, in an interview with IRNA here on Sunday.

China

The Financial Times:

“China’s costs are all going up,” Mr Fung said. “It is no longer the most cost-effective country in the region...Anything [sourced] from China has a higher inflation component than from other places around the world.”

The New York Times:

BEIJING, March 22 — Global Times, a tabloid newspaper in China's capital, usually offers its readers a rich diet of nationalist propaganda on subjects like Japanese war crimes and American hegemony.

So it is telling that it devoted its front page on Tuesday to respectful, even admiring, coverage of the China visit of two United States senators, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who have attacked Beijing for "illegal currency manipulation," "mercantilism" and "failure to play by the rules."

From Russia with Espionage

The Baltimore Sun:

WASHINGTON // Even as the United States and Russia are cooperating to resolve international crises and track militant Islamic groups, Moscow is working at least as hard at stealing U.S. military and industrial secrets as during the Soviet era, current and former intelligence officials say.

Lobbying

MSNBC: "From Senate job to nuclear lobbyist — twice"

Hillary

This will work. Keep telling yourself that, Hil.

The New York Daily News:

Sen. Hillary Clinton used the Bible yesterday to belt Republicans who back a tough new immigration bill she said was not only un-American, but un-Christian as well.

"It is certainly not in keeping with my understanding of the Scriptures," Clinton said. "This bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan - and probably even Jesus himself."

Pen vs. sword

USA Today (published also in the Arizona Republic):

WASHINGTON - President Bush today becomes the longest-sitting president since Thomas Jefferson not to exercise his veto, surpassing James Monroe.

Monroe was in office 1,888 days before he vetoed his first bill on May 4, 1822, a measure that would have imposed a toll on Cumberland Road, the first federal highway and the key route to the West. Jefferson never exercised his veto.

Thursday is Bush's 1,889th day in office, and no veto is in sight. So far, Congress has sent him 1,091 bills. He has signed them all.

Dems in 2006

The Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- The Democratic Party is targeting at least 17 Republican-held House seats in the Northeast among its top races nationwide, seeking to use voter dissatisfaction with President Bush and congressional leaders to oust many long-serving GOP representatives this fall.