Hashim Ibrahim Awad was an Iraqi civilian, a retired policeman, who was brutally killed in Hamdaniya, an area west of Baghdad. 7 marines and a navy medic were charged in the death.

Today, Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington,one of the charged Marines pleaded guilty to "conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and kidnapping, and to a kidnapping charge. Other charges he faced were dismissed at sentencing."

He was sentenced to 14 years with an agreement he will serve 8 in prison.

The navy medic flipped and agreed to testify against the Marines. He said:

Awad's hands and feet were bound and he was dragged from his home and shot numerous times. Then, he said, one Marine put the dead man's fingerprints on a rifle and shovel to make it look like he had been caught trying to plant a roadside bomb.

Pennington is 22. He apologized in court and has agreed to testify against his remaining codefendants.

Just one day after the House passed the non-binding Iraq war resolution, the Senate gathered on a Saturday and voted against it.

It was the second time this month that minority Republicans successfully filibustered a nonbinding resolution opposing the troop buildup.

Senators voted 56-34 to invoke cloture and proceed to a floor vote on the resolution, with seven Republicans joining all the chamber's Democrats in calling for an end to the debate. But the motion fell four votes short of the threshold needed under Senate rules.

Here are the Republicans who voted for the resolution:

On Hillary Clinton's website today, she unveils a new message on Iraq.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has called for a 90-day deadline to start pulling American troops from Iraq.

"Now it's time to say the redeployment should start in 90 days or the Congress will revoke authorization for this war," the New York senator said in a video on her campaign Web site, repeating a point included in a bill she introduced on Friday.

As to Hillary's bill, introduced yesterday:

Clinton's bill would cap the number of troops in Iraq at the January 1 level, prior to Bush's decision to add 21,500 to the approximately 130,000 soldiers already there.... [and] would require congressional authorization to exceed her proposed cap on U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Hillary also has a clear message for President Bush:

"If George Bush doesn't end the war before he leaves office, when I'm president, I will," Clinton said in the video.

More...

What a welcome surprise. The Dallas Morning News has not only been reading the blog coverage of the Scooter Libby trial, it has been doing a few wrap-ups with quotes from many of the bloggers.

• February 17

• February 3

Hang him:

"[It] is a singular omission in this message [by President James K. Polk], that it, no where intimates when the President expects the war to terminate. At it's beginning, Genl. Scott was, by this same President, driven into disfavor, if not disgrace, for intimating that peace could not be conquered in less than three or four months. But now, at the end of about twenty months, during which time our arms have given us the most splendid successes--every department, and every part, land and water, officers and privates, regulars and volunteers, doing all that men could do, and hundreds of things which it had ever before been thought men could not do,--after all this, this same President gives us a long message, without showing us, that, as to the end, he himself, has, even an imaginary conception. As I have before said, he knows not where he is. He is a bewildered, confounded, and miserably perplexed man. God grant he may be able to show, there is not something about his conscious [sic], more painful than all his mental perplexity!"

The Hillary camp says:

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

Personally, I don't care about an apology. What I want to know is why she thought a war with Iraq in 2002 made strategic sense, even if the intelligence was not wrong and stovepiped. Because, Senator Clinton, this is perhaps the most serious question we ask of our Presidential candidates- when do you think we should use military force? Your vote FOR the Iraq war in October 2002 was wrong on every level. It is a vote that must be explained. And yes, you voted for war Senator:

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq . . .

The question is why. It is a question you should answer.

Former Senator Gary Hart has a new post at Huffpo on the specious argument that the National Guard needs to be fighting in Iraq to protect Americans at home.

....the National Guard units in Iraq are not in the United States standing post over our nation's security at home. They are not being trained and equipped for this vital mission. If we are in fact at war with terrorism, we are leaving our homeland flanks totally exposed. The Administration and its supporters have excused this dereliction in security with the hollow slogan: We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here.

....The "them" we are fighting in Iraq are overwhelmingly Iraqi insurgents who have no interest in following us home. And the relatively small but growing numbers of al Qaeda in Iraq can do more than one thing at once, as the people of London and Madrid can testify.

We need the National Guard at home, not in Iraq.

More...

Josh Marshall points to a Joe Lieberman statement where Lieberman essentially argues for evisceration of the separation of powers when it comes to the war power.

Lieberman starts with some correct analysis:

Congress has been given constitutional responsibilities. But the micro-management of war is not one of them. The appropriation of funds for war is. I appreciate that each of us here has our own ideas about the best way forward in Iraq, I respect those that take a different position than I, and I understand that many feel strongly that the President’s strategy is the wrong one. But the Constitution, which has served us now for more than two great centuries of our history, creates not 535 commanders-in-chief, but one—the President of the United States, who is authorized to lead the day to day conduct of war.

As I have written before, this is my view:

What is clear is that all this legal tapdancing get us nowhere. To end the war, the Congress can do one of two things, or preferably both: it can repeal the Iraq AUMF, and/or it can refuse to fund the war. This sophistry from Democrats, politicians and legal scholars, does neither us nor our principles credit.

As discussed here, Team Libby filed a new theory of defense instruction Thursday it wants the jury to consider.

In Fitz' final verdict brief, he objects to this portion:

Further, Mr. Libby was well aware when he was first interviewed by the FBI and when he testified to the grand jury that the investigators could and likely would talk to government officials and the journalists he spoke with concerning Ambassador
Wilson and that those officials and journalists would truthfully recount their recollections of the conversations he had with them.

More...

In preparation for Tuesday's closing arguments, it may be helpful to distill the charges and alleged lies of Scooter Libby, from the Government's point of view, since it has the burden of proof. In subsequent posts, I'll look at the defense arguments and the points of contention that still exist over jury instructions.

Note, this series of posts is not sexy. They are dry and may not be of interest to anyone not closely following the legal aspects of the case.

There are five counts against Libby. The first is obstruction of justice. Counts two and three are false statements to federal investigators in the fall of 2003; Counts four and five allege perjury before the grand jury in March, 2004.

Yesterday, the Government filed this brief outlining its position on the verdict forms the jury should receive as to counts 1, 2 and 5.

According to the Government, to convict Libby of obstruction of justice, it must unanimously conclude at least one of these statements which Libby made to the grand jury is false:

More...

Tim Griffin, the former Rove aide pushed by Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales to replace Arkansas U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins says he won't seek the appointment because of the objections of Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy, who are leading the effort to block his appointment.

Tim Griffin, the former White House aide who has been at the center of a political storm over U.S. attorneys' firings, said yesterday that he will not seek the nomination to be chief federal prosecutor in Little Rock.

Griffin, 38, a military lawyer who previously worked for presidential adviser Karl Rove and for the Republican National Committee, was appointed interim U.S. attorney in Little Rock in December on the White House's recommendation. The Justice Department said it intended to nominate Griffin for the job permanently.

Griffin will remain interim U.S. Attorney until a new replacement is named. He said because of the opposition to his appointment, he won't subject himself to the "circus."

More....

Since Kathleen Blanco would be dead in the water is a nonstarter (my apologies for the distasteful phrase I used previously) in a bid for a reelection as Louisina Governor, this is good news for the Dems, via Charlie Cook:

Former Democratic Sen. John Breaux is seriously considering a bid for Governor of Louisiana. John Maginnis, editor of the highly regarded Louisiana Political Fax Weekly, initially reported the news this morning, and the Cook Political Report has independently verified that it is true. Apparently Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco has privately indicated a willingness to step aside if Breaux, or possibly another Democrat, such as Rep. Charlie Melancon, would run instead.

None of this is a done deal, but Breaux is serious, and his candidacy would change the face of the race for Democrats.

Breaux would win imo.