by TChris

Military families walked to the Dover Air Force Base Sunday -- the site of the military's largest mortuary -- in the opening leg of a protest march that concludes Monday morning with a six mile hike from Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the White House.

They walked Sunday to mourn those who have died since the beginning of the war in Iraq, to call for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and to protest the Pentagon policy that keeps families and the media from attending the return of remains at Dover's mortuary.

Recent media coverage of violence in Iraq has focused on attacks against Iraqi citizens who further the interests of the United States, but attacks upon American soldiers continue, too often with tragic success.

One American soldier was killed early Sunday when his convoy west of Baghdad was blasted by a roadside explosive. Three soldiers died Saturday when their patrol in southeast Baghdad also fell victim to a homemade bomb.

Those deaths, announced by a military spokesman on Sunday, followed an attack on Saturday with an improvised explosive device and small-arms fire in Tikrit that left two soldiers dead.

by TChris

So which George is in trouble here? Tenet or Bush?

The Senate Intelligence Committee will soon release a report blaming Tenet for the claim that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons.

The committee report criticizes Tenet and the CIA for consistently seizing on the worst-case scenario of the Iraq threat and overriding the views of intelligence agencies in areas where those agencies had expertise.

Different agencies made conflicting intelligence assessments, but "poor coordination at the top" only contributed to the confusion of policy makers, says the report.

The Bush administration would love to keep the focus on Tenet, and the report furthers that aim by failing to address the administration's complicit demand for any intelligence, however questionable, that served its political needs.

Fortunately, there are people who have longer attention spans than the president, and those people will remember that the administration manipulated intelligence to its own ends. Those people will not stop with the conclusions reached by the Intelligence Committee but will continue to insist that the buck move farther up the chain of command.

This editorial in the Virginian-Pilot, for instance, adds up the evidence and concludes that "hawkish administration officials, intent on invading Iraq, went around Tenet and grasped at any shard of intelligence they could find to bolster their case." One of those hawkish officials, Donald Rumsfeld, put together a "personal intelligence team" that "briefed the National Security Council and Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff, channeling information to the top, without Tenet’s knowledge."

So as much as the administration might like to see Tenet blamed for intelligence failures, blame goes all the way to the top -- to the other George, and to Rumsfeld and Cheney for cutting Tenet out of the loop.

It was just over a year ago that former Illinois Governor George Ryan pardoned all on death row. Now, with new Governor Rod R. Blagojevich, the debate is heating up again:

On one side of the new debate are legislators and prosecutors who say landmark reforms state lawmakers have adopted in recent months mean it is time to begin executions again. On the other side are critics of capital punishment who praise the reforms but say many more must be made before Illinois can be certain it is not executing an innocent person — if that can ever be assured.

The reforms instituted by the Illinois legislature over the past year are good ones. But they have not been in place long enough to fix the broken system. According to Edwin Colfax, executive director of the Illinois Death Penalty Education Project:

"Our big concern is that people see the substantial progress we've had to date and are under the impression that the death penalty has been fixed," Mr. Colfax said. "That would be a tragedy. The reality is that there is such a long way to go. We are not on the cusp of a death penalty system that deserves our confidence."

An investigation is underway in California into the death of Khem Singh, a 72 year-old crippled, Sikh priest from India who died of starvation. After being brutalized by a prison guard, Mr. Singh would not leave his cell for meals or medical visits. Fellow inmates wrote letters and filed complaints about his condition and officials did nothing. His weight dropped to 80 pounds. Now, he is dead.

Prison officials said Friday that they would talk to the inmates and review their letters and complaints as part of a growing investigation into Singh's death. The case coincides with increased scrutiny of California's vast prison system, which is riddled with accusations of brutality, coverups, fraud and poor medical care.

At Corcoran, Singh's condition took a turn for the worse early this year. Some correctional officers went to the prison's medical staff to express their own concerns, according to Romero, but logbooks show that no medical technician, nurse or doctor followed up and treated him in his cell. "Mr. Singh has not left his cell to go to eat — not once," the inmate wrote to Romero in a Feb. 11 letter. "They do not bring him any food. None. I smuggle bread back.... Mr. Singh is gentle, polite. I am ashamed it took me so long to speak out."

The guard who supervised the cellblock — the same one suspected of having assaulted Singh — is alleged to have told another inmate not to bother speaking out on behalf of the starving inmate. "Forget it; he's going to die," the inmate quoted the guard as telling him, according to Romero. A few days later, after collapsing in his cell, Singh died of lung and heart failure caused by starvation.

There's more:

The Washington Post reports Monday that investigators in Spain now believe Al Qaeda was responsible after all for the Spain bombings:

Investigators believe the train bombings that killed 200 people here last week were the work of a multinational cell of al Qaeda loyalists, some of whom entered Spain specifically to carry out the attacks and who are now the target of an international effort to identify and capture them, according to European and Arab intelligence officials. The officials said the preliminary investigation and interrogation of five arrested suspects -- three Moroccans and two Indian Muslims -- as well as other evidence indicated that the Thursday morning rush-hour bombings were carried out by the al Qaeda network, marking the first time the group has struck in Europe.

The way the bombings were carried out is particularly worrisome to European leaders:

For European leaders, the al Qaeda link is a chilling development, and security services across the continent are now scrambling to assess the likelihood of further attacks in Europe. Analysts said the method of the Madrid attacks -- synchronized bombings apparently carried out by remote control rather than by suicide bombers -- suggested that Islamic extremists had become more adaptable and, therefore, even more of a threat.

The Moroccan suspects are being interrogated. So far, they have provided only limited information and have made several requests for the Koran. As to why Spain was chosen, officials theorize:

In a stinging rebuke to Spain's conservative government that supported the war in Iraq, voters booted them out at the polls today--

It was the first time a government that backed the Iraq war has been voted out of office. Incoming prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has pledged to bring home the 1,300 troops Spain has stationed in Iraq when their tour of duty ends in July.....Pre-election polls had favored the ruling party to win handily. But on election day voters expressed anger with the government, accusing it of provoking the Madrid attacks by supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which most Spaniards opposed.

Say hello to the new legal group blog, De Novo--comprised of several of the members of the recently defunct En Banc. The new blog consists of symposia on various legal issues. It's first post has contributions from some well-known legal bloggers:

Howard Bashman, "To Think Like A Lawyer"
Prof. Douglas Berman, "It Depends"
Prof. Lawrence Solum, "What Do Law Schools Teach?"
Prof. Eugene Volokh, "Writing to Think Like a Lawyer"

The "remember me" function in the comments should be working again. A big thanks to Al-Muhajabah who answered our question in the Movable Type forums. For those of you with MT questions, check out Al-Muhajabah's MT tips page.

The New York Times says in this editorial :

Four years after Florida made a mockery of American elections, there is every reason to believe it could happen again. This time, the problems will most likely be with the electronic voting that has replaced chad-producing punch cards.

Here's the latest, according to the Times:

As Floridians went to the polls last Tuesday, Glenda Hood, Katherine Harris's successor as secretary of state, assured the nation that Florida's voting system would not break down this year the way it did in 2000. Florida now has "the very best" technology available, she declared on CNN. "And I do feel that it's a great disservice to create the feeling that there's a problem when there is not." Hours later, results in Bay County showed that with more than 60 percent of precincts reporting, Richard Gephardt, who long before had pulled out of the presidential race, was beating John Kerry by two to one. "I'm devastated," the county's top election official said, promising a recount of his county's 19,000 votes.

Other Florida election snafus this week:

The latest news in the Spain bombing investigation is that one of the three Moroccans arrested yesterday has ties to the leader of an Al Qaeda cell who figured into the 9/11 attacks and who has been in custody in Spain for some time.

A Sept. 17, 2003 indictment calls Jamal Zougam - arrested in Thursday's attacks - a "follower" of Imad Yarkas, the alleged leader of Spain's al-Qaida cell who was jailed for allegedly helping plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Yarkas, whose alias is Abu Dahdah, remains in Spanish custody. The indictment targets Yarkas and 34 others, including bin Laden, for terrorist activities connected to al-Qaida. Zougam, 30, was not indicted.

Friends of two of the jailed Moroccans think they are not involved:

Friends of the Moroccans said the Madrid store where they worked sold cell phones but they insisted that the men would not have been involved in planning or carrying out the attacks. "People shouldn't be put in jail for selling cell phones. They are hard workers," said Karim, who works in a phone shop near the now-shuttered store where the arrested Moroccans worked. Karim did not want to give his last name.

Death row inmate David Paul Hammer plans to testify at Terry Nichols' trial that while Hammer and Timothy McVeigh were in nearby cells on death row, McVeigh told him that Nichols refused to help build the bomb--and that the bomb was built in an Oklahoma warehouse and not in Kansas. The prosecution says Hammer is not a credible witness. He is scheduled to be executed June 8 for killing a cellmate. More on Hammer and his upcoming book can be found here.

The jury has been seated. Opening arguments are set for March 22.

Nichols' attorneys plan to argue that McVeigh framed him to shield the real accomplices in the bombing. The attorneys have said Hammer will tell jurors that McVeigh revealed who else was involved in the 1995 attack, including the identity of a second person believed to have been with McVeigh on the day of the bombing. Hammer told the newspaper the second person was a member of the Aryan Republican Army, a gang of white supremacist bank robbers.

At American Prospect, Harvard terrorism expert Jessica Stern looks at the possible connection between Basque separatists and Al Qaeda:

I have to wonder whether there's cooperation between ETA and Al Qaeda, and what this relationship might consist of. Al Qaeda is pragmatic and likes to avail itself of local operatives, expertise, and languages. They especially like to recruit locals. Al Qaeda has a large presence in Spain, so looking for partners like ETA would be at the top of their list. We know that the majority of people in Spain oppose the war in Iraq, so it makes me wonder whether some members of ETA have been infiltrated by the Al Qaeda network. There's also the chance that Al Qaeda might be recruiting within ETA.

As to the credibility of the Al Quaeda group claiming responsibility for the Spain attacks, Stern says:

The group claiming to speak for Al Qaeda is notoriously unreliable -- they even claimed responsibility for last summer's blackout. Intelligence officials really don't know anything about the group.