Salon.com | News Wires: "Despite a month-old pledge, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has yet to reopen four of its biggest no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina work and won't do so until the contracts are virtually complete. A promise to hire more minority-owned firms also is largely unfulfilled.

The no-bid contracts for temporary housing, worth up to $100 million each, were given to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Corp., CH2M Hill Inc. and Fluor Corp. right after Katrina struck. Charges of favoritism helped prompt last month's pledge by FEMA acting director R. David Paulison, but now officials with the Homeland Security Department, which oversees FEMA, say the contracts won't be awarded again until February."

(Via Salon.)

US Admits It Has Counted 26,000 Iraqi Dead By Daniel Howden and David Usborne : "The Pentagon has admitted for the first time that it is keeping track of civilian casualties in Iraq. The figures, slipped into a bar graph in a lengthy report to the US congress this month, show that the daily number of Iraqi casualties has more than doubled in the past 18 months.

The report says that nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents, with an estimated 26 casualties a day between January and March of last year, rising to 64 a day in the run up to the referendum on the new constitution.

This contradicts the Pentagon's assertion that the security situation in Iraq is improving - and that appearances to the contrary reflect the media's focus on bombings in and around Baghdad."

(Via countercurrents.org.)

Roberts pushes for Patriot Act subpoenas: "As House and Senate negotiators opened talks on the expiring USA Patriot Act, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said talks have moved toward withholding some of the tools law enforcement agencies need to fight a war on terror.

He said he will push hard for the panel to enact administrative subpoena power in the final product. In June, his panel included the expanded power to subpoena records without the approval of a judge or grand jury in terrorism investigations. But the Senate and the House passed their bills without the provision, long sought by the Bush administration.

'Why is it that on our number one security threat, we balk?' Roberts asked the panel of 32 lawmakers, which includes himself.

Other committee members said caution makes sense when Congress is considering expanding the government's power to monitor the most private areas of people's lives. They pointed to recent reports that some 30,000 national security letters - issued by FBI agents without approval of a judge or grand jury - are secretly issued every year, a 100-fold increase over their use historically.

'You can't open up the paper or turn on the TV without hearing (about) public concern about the Patriot Act,' said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa."

(Via seattlepi.com.)

The Counterterrorism Blog: French Islamists, the winners of the riots: "I just finished an article re the real implications of the French Islamists in the latest wave of violence in French suburbs. Here is an excerpt:

In fact, the French suburbs where radical Islam is most entrenched have been quiet. As terrorism expert Alain Bauer wisely observed: 'The radical Islamists would rather see the return of calm so they can act quietly.'

Most radical Islamist Web sites I've browsed are calling on rioters to put down their rocks and molotov cocktails. One exhorts Muslims 'not to give ammunition to the Zionist Nicolas Sarkozy scum who has now shown his real face as an Israeli terrorist' -- a reference to the country's hardline Interior Minister."

(Via The Counterterrorism Blog.)

Think Progress » Bush Resurrects False Claim That Congress Had “Same Intelligence” On Iraq: "In his speech today, President Bush claimed that members of Congress who voted for the 2002 Iraq war resolution ‘had access to the same intelligence’ as his administration. This is patently false.

Nevermind that much of the intelligence offered to the public and to Congress was inaccurate and misleading, or that according to the Downing Street memo and other documents, such intelligence was likely intentionally ‘fixed.’ It is simply not true to state that Congress received the ‘same intelligence’ as the White House:"

(A bullet-point summary of the argument)

• Dissent From White House Claims on Iraq Nuclear Program Consistently Withheld from Congress
• Sen. Kerrey: Bush “Has Much More Access” to Intel Than Congress
• Rockefeller: PDBs, CIA Intel Withheld From Senate
• War Supporter Ken Pollack: White House Engaged in “Creative Omission” of Iraq Intel
• White House Had Exclusive Access to “Unique” Intel Sources

(Via Think Progress.)

Capitol Hill Blue: White House keeps dossiers on more than 10,000 'political enemies': "Spurred by paranoia and aided by the USA Patriot Act, the Bush Administration has compiled dossiers on more than 10,000 Americans it considers political enemies and uses those files to wage war on those who disagree with its policies.

The ‘enemies list’ dates back to Bush’s days as governor of Texas and can be accessed by senior administration officials in an instant for use in campaigns to discredit those who speak out against administration policies or acts of the President.

The computerized files include intimate personal details on members of Congress; high-ranking local, state and federal officials; prominent media figures and ordinary citizens who may, at one time or another, have spoken out against the President or Administration.

Capitol Hill Blue has spoken with a number of current and former administration officials who acknowledge existence of the enemies list only under a guarantee of confidentiality. Those who have seen the list say it is far more extensive than Richard Nixon’s famous ‘enemies list’ of Watergate fame or Bill Clinton’s dossiers on political enemies.

‘How is that you think Karl (Rove) and Scooter (Libby) were able to disseminate so much information on Joe Wilson and his wife,’ says one White House aide. ‘They didn’t have that information by accident. They had it because they have files on those who might hurt them.’

White House insiders tell disturbing tales of invasion of privacy, abuse of government power and use of expanded authority under the USA Patriot Act to dig into the personal lives of anyone the administration deems an enemy of the state."

(Via LewRockwell.com Blog.)

t r u t h o u t - Democrats Sweep Virginia, New Jersey Races: "Washington - Democrats swept tough and sometimes nasty governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday, dealing a setback to Republicans and President George W. Bush ahead of critical congressional elections next year.

    

In Republican-leaning Virginia, Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine defeated former Attorney General Jerry Kilgore despite Bush's 11th-hour appearance on Kilgore's behalf."

(Via t r u t h o u t.)

t r u t h o u t - Council of Europe to Probe Alleged CIA Jails: "Brussels - The Council of Europe has opened an investigation into reports of secret CIA detention centers in Romania and Poland, a European Commission spokesman said on Tuesday.

    

The decision follows a Washington Post report earlier this month which said the US intelligence agency has been hiding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at secret facilities in Eastern Europe.

    

The detention centers are part of a covert global prison system that included sites in eight countries and was set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Washington Post said.

    

'We understand that the Legal Affairs Committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly has appointed its chairperson, Dick Marty,' said Friso Roscam-Abbing, justice and home affairs spokesman for the European Union executive.

    

The Council of Europe is the continent's top human rights watchdog and includes the European Court of Human Rights."

(Via t r u t h o u t.)

Martini Republic » IRS issues nakedly partisan Republican warning to Episcopal church: "Today, we learn that an Episcopal Church in Pasadena has been warned by the Internal Revenue Service that it may lose its tax-exempt status for giving what appears to have been a fairly balanced sermon on peace and the War in Iraq.

To our knowledge, throughout the Bush administration, no church favoring a rightwing candidate or issue has ever been issued such a warning."

(Via Martini Republic.)

t r u t h o u t - Report Warned Bush Team about Intelligence Doubts: "A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, 'was intentionally misleading the debriefers' in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda's work with illicit weapons.

    

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as 'credible' evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

    

Among the first and most prominent assertions was one by Mr. Bush, who said in a major speech in Cincinnati in October 2002 that 'we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases.'"

(Via t r u t h o u t.)