Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday said elections in Iraq will take place as scheduled in January--with some exceptions. Here's SK Bubba's take:

I'm guessing these would be the Shiite regions. Because if they could vote, they would control the government and install an Islamic theocracy. Which would not be good for business. Better to have a secular Baathist government run by the Sunnis. You know, like they had under Saddam. Like the one Cheney and Rumsfeld did business with in the 1980s. Meet the new boss...

Salem Chalabi, the former director of the Iraqi war crimes tribunal, warns that the interim Allawi government intends to hold a quick and dirty show trial of Saddam Hussein to boost Allawi's chances in the January elections:

"The caretaker government wants to begin the trials, and possibly even conclude them, before the Iraqi elections scheduled for late January because they believe this will help their popularity in the country," Chalabi said in the statement. "In addition, the accused have not had access to lawyers. How could fair trials begin quickly without the accused having access to legal counsel?"

He said the investigations were not ready for indictments or trials that would meet minimum legal standards. "It is increasingly clear that the interim government does not intend to honor these principals," he said.

Chalabi said the charges brought against him in August have been dropped, although he is still under investigation for murder of a foreign ministry official.

The military has announced it's recruiting goal for Army national guard soldiers will fall short by 5,000.

It will be the first time since 1994 that the Guard has missed its sign-up goal.

Two reasons are given:

One reason is the active-duty Army is prohibiting soldiers already in units in Iraq or Afghanistan — or preparing to deploy there — from leaving the service, even if their enlistment term is up. The other reason, [Army Lt. Gen. H. Steven]Blum said, is that active-duty soldiers know a growing number of Guard units are being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, so they figure there is little to be gained, in terms of reduced personal risk, by switching from active duty to the Guard.

TalkLeft's premium ad space on the right will be available tomorrow. I've lowered the price in case anyone is interested. The space is limited to one ad at a time.

The Washington Post weighs in on the release of Yaser Hamdi:

What remains objectionable -- what looms as more objectionable than ever, now that the government has acknowledged Mr. Hamdi's unimportance -- is the unnecessary assault on civil liberties that the administration led in his case. For three years the administration insisted that Mr. Hamdi be held incommunicado and without any semblance of normal legal process or rights despite his citizenship. For most of his detention he was prevented from meeting with his lawyer. In 2002 the government contended in court that merely allowing him to meet with counsel "jeopardizes compelling national security interests" and would "interfere with if not irreparably harm the military's ongoing efforts to gather intelligence." Mr. Hamdi, it warned, might even "pass concealed messages through unwitting intermediaries."

Had the military allowed Mr. Hamdi to meet with his lawyer in a timely fashion and not acted so aggressively to prevent him from presenting his own account of his behavior, it might have had credibility to reserve the right to act otherwise in a truly exceptional situation. But its behavior toward Mr. Hamdi -- even assuming he is an enemy combatant, which he denies -- makes it difficult to give the benefit of the doubt to such claims of necessity. Apocalyptic justifications for needlessly aggressive positions that have gross consequences for liberty cannot be wiped away with a blithe "never mind."

The New York Times Opinion section rocks today:

Editorial: The Face of Iraqi Democracy

Iraq's appointed leader, Ayad Allawi, put on an impressive performance yesterday in Washington. Addressing Congress and then holding a joint news conference with President Bush, he thanked America in the name of the Iraqi people for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Challenging the news reports that Americans get daily, Mr. Allawi claimed that security is improving, economic reconstruction is progressing and democratic institutions are taking root. It was everything the Bush re-election campaign could have asked for. Unfortunately, most of it was wrong.

Bush Upbeat as Iraq Burns
By BOB HERBERT

This woman is the best. She speaks what we are thinking. And she has the where-with-all to tell anyone who doesn't like it where to go.

Wednesday night in Phoenix, Theresa Heinz-Kerry raised a cool mil for Arizona Democrats. And in the process, she surmised aloud:

In regard to the hunt for terror leader Osama Bin Laden, Heinz Kerry said she could see the al-Qaida chief being caught before the November election. "I wouldn't be surprised if he appeared in the next month," said Heinz Kerry, alluding to a possible capture by United States and allied forces before election day.

In the October 7 issue of the New York Review of Books, Mark Danner reviews the final official Abu Ghraib report , also known as the Schlesinger Report, and notes:

Out of the interlocking scandals and controversies symbolized by Hooded Man and Leashed Man, the pyramids of naked bodies, the snarling dogs, and all the rest, and known to the world by the collective name of Abu Ghraib, one can extract two "master narratives," both dependent on the power and mutability of the images themselves.

The first is that of President Bush, who presented the photographs as depicting "disgraceful conduct by a few American troops, who dishonored our country and disregarded our values"—behavior that, the President insisted, "does not represent America." And the aberrant, outlandish character of what the photographs show—the nudity, the sadism, the pornographic imagery—seemed to support this "few bad apples" argument, long the classic defense of states accused of torture.

The facts, however, almost from day one, did not: the Red Cross report, the Army's own Taguba report, even the photographs themselves, some of which depicted military intelligence soldiers assisting in abuses they supposedly knew nothing about—all strongly suggested that the images were the brutal public face of behavior that involved many more people than the seven military police who were quickly charged.

Haven't heard much from Attorney General Ashcroft lately--but his spin machine was at work today. He conducted a conference call with all 93 U.S. Attorneys last week, urging them to be vigilant because of pre-election day terror threats.

Ashcroft and Comey reiterated concerns that top U.S. officials have been voicing since the spring -- that al Qaeda may try to attack the United States in the run up to the November election. "Given that the intelligence was pegged to an attack between now and the election, the closer we get to the election, obviously the smaller the window gets and the greater our concern gets," said the official.

"We are engaged in a full-court press in every corner of the country to try to detect and disrupt the attack that we're worried about. And this is part of that -- enlisting the U.S. attorneys."

The official said Ashcroft was concerned that some prosecutors and law enforcement officials may have let their guard down because there had been so many terror alerts. "It was a pep talk," he said. "We're pushing energy into the system."

If you are a criminal defense lawyer or defense investigator don't miss this seminar in Atlanta, October 14 - 17 on eyewitness evidence and police and prosecutorial misconduct offered by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL.)

This innovative CLE seminar is a double-barreled attack on police and prosecutorial misconduct — from suggestive eyewitness procedures to racial profiling — featuring an all-star lineup of litigators and experts. This historic conference will dramatically change the way you litigate eyewitness cases — from strategies designed to overrule Manson v. Braithwaite regarding the admissibility of eyewitness evidence, to creative new state-of-the-art methods to litigate eyewitness identification cases before juries. Join NACDL in the forefront of transforming and developing successful winning criminal litigation strategies for the 21st Century. This is a critical seminar for every criminal litigator.

Melanie Lowery, was a battered woman who killed her husband to get him to stop beating her and sodomizing her 9 yr. old son. After serving 14 years at Alabama's Tutwiler Prison, she was granted parole last month by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles that has granted virtually no paroles in the past 5 years to people convicted of violent crimes.

Melanie was granted parole because of her perfect prison record and the facts of her case. Attorney General Troy King, a young, politically ambitious conservative Republican in the mold of his predecessor Bill Pryor (after his contentious appointment to the 11th Circuit), decided to oppose the parole, and demanded the parole board reconsider their decision. The Birmingham News reports the sad decision.

George Bush, fearmonger.