News roundup 03.29.2006

Andrew Card

The Los Angeles Times:

Challenging the move as falling short of a staff shake-up, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said: "They still need men and women of stature and gravitas in a number of slots there in the White House. They need to bring in some experienced hands to get a handle on things."

The Houston Chronicle:

WASHINGTON - President Bush's choice of budget director Joshua Bolten to replace longtime Chief of Staff Andrew Card signals a low-key shift in strategy away from politics toward a more policy-driven operation, experts and insiders said Tuesday.

The Washington Post:

"When you run into brick walls, you need to figure out ways around it," said a high-ranking administration official, who acknowledged that a White House that once prided itself on tuning out the views of op-ed pages and cable talk shows is now more likely to tune in. "Part of what you are seeing is some adjustment to the political realities."

Time Magazine:

The replacement of Bush’s first chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., with budget director Joshua B. Bolten may foster a badly needed sense of renewal and produce headlines about a shakeup. But this is the comfort food of staff changes — the replacement of a longtime family loyalist with someone who has been one of this President’s insiders since the Austin days.

Bloomberg News:

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush responded to sinking approval rates and criticism from within his own party by signaling he's staying the course, replacing one senior aide with another in the job of White House chief of staff.

Iraqi politics

Notice the slight differences in detail and sourcing.

The Philadelphia Inquirer:

BAGHDAD - U.S. officials sent a message this week to Iraq's senior Shiite cleric asking that he help end the impasse over forming a government and strongly implying that the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, should withdraw his candidacy for reelection, according to U.S. officials.

The New York Times:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 28 — The American ambassador has told Shiite officials that President Bush does not want the Iraqi prime minister to remain the country's leader in the next government, senior Shiite politicians said Tuesday.

The Los Angeles Times:

BAGHDAD — In an effort to break a deadlock in forming Iraq's new government, the Bush administration has notified the leading Shiite Muslim alliance that it opposes the nomination of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari for another term in office, a U.S. official and Shiite politician said Tuesday.

More Iraq news...

The Washington Post:

BAGHDAD, March 28 -- Sectarian violence has displaced more than 25,000 Iraqis since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine, a U.N.-affiliated agency said Tuesday, and shelters and tent cities are springing up across central and southern Iraq to house homeless Sunni and Shiite families.

The Hill:

The chairman of the House Select Intelligence Committee returned from his seventh visit to Iraq last week “extremely frustrated” by the failure of Iraqi leaders to form a new unity government, which he called “the key to the future of Iraq.”

The Japan Times:

The government announced Tuesday that it will extend yen loans totaling 76.5 billion yen for reconstruction in Iraq -- its first such assistance to the conflict-ravaged country in 20 years.

The untied loans will be the first disbursement from a yen loan package worth $ 3.5 billion that Tokyo pledged to Iraq at a donors' conference in Madrid in 2003.

Immigration

The Washington Post:

With the Republican Party deeply divided, the Senate will take up a broad revision of the nation's immigration laws today amid signs that conservatives are ready to compromise on efforts to offer illegal immigrants new avenues to lawful employment.

The Washington Times:

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner refused yesterday to rule out compromising with the Senate to expand the House border security bill to include a guest-worker program or provisions that opponents call "amnesty."

The Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- Conservative lawmakers are pressing the Senate to ignore a sweeping immigration reform bill approved Monday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and instead are favoring a far narrower measure designed primarily to secure the nation's borders.

India's nukes

Robert Kagan in the Washington Post:

Imagine that this powerful, prosperous, democratic nation sits on the same continent with Russia and China, two huge geopolitical problems waiting to happen. Imagine that this nation possesses a navy capable of helping patrol strategically vital waterways and a military force capable of acting as a deterrent against powerful neighbors. Finally, imagine that this nation, despite its power, has no record of using it for aggressive purposes but has been a remarkably peaceful and often constructive member of the global community.

Would we or would we not want to have the closest possible relationship, partnership, even alliance with such a country as we head into an uncertain future?

Jimmy Carter in the Washington Post: "A Dangerous Deal With India"

Domestic spying

The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, March 28 — Five former judges on the nation's most secretive court, including one who resigned in apparent protest over President Bush's domestic eavesdropping, urged Congress on Tuesday to give the court a formal role in overseeing the surveillance program.

Pentagon

The Boston Globe:

WASHINGTON -- A special Pentagon office created by Congress to review the performance of new weapons has not publicly released an assessment in four years, raising concerns that the Department of Defense's commitment to oversight is dwindling at a time when weapons spending is on the rise, according to current and former Pentagon officials.

French revolution

The Christian Science Monitor sub-headlines: "A million people took to the streets Tuesday, but the leaders treated the 'crisis' as part of the political process."

An excerpt:

"Demonstrations are no longer even seen by the government as a sign of open crisis," says Danielle Tartakowski, a historian and professor at the University of Paris.

The prime minister, she adds, is flirting with danger. "If you make the demonstrations a quasi-norm of political life for resolving disputes," Mrs. Tartakowski says, "you can create a very strong destabilization of society and a strong sentiment of revolt."