by Mark Silva

This makes the demolition of a Las Vegas hotel look like firecrackers.

As promised, North Korea demolished the visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program today, part of a commitment to disclose its program and cease enrichment of uranium that is winning a lifting of some restrictions by the United States.

President Bush is taking North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terrorism in 45 days, if Pyongyang follows through on its commitments.

But Pyongyang hasn't done much as promised -- so the White House remains wary of the regime's intentions and maintains that full verficiation will be required to ensure that North Korea is not building any more bombs.

The Yongbyong reactor -- its tower at an already idled facility taken down for a live television audience -- is where North Korea has enriched uranium. Now the government is providing the United States and other partners in the six-party talks with North Korea an accounting of how much plutonium it has made -- which leads in turn to how many bombs it has built.

All of this is "the first step'' in a nuclear-weapons free Korean peninsula, the White House hopes. But, as Bush put it this week, his administraiton harbors "no illusions" about North Korea.

They did, at least, get some great TV out of the deal.

by Bay Fang

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's three-country, five-day Asia tour, which starts this week, appears to be a last-ditch attempts to salvage the legacy of the Bush administration.

She will be going first to Japan for the G8 foreign ministers' meeting Thursday before heading to South Korea and visiting quake-ravaged China, but the biggest focus of the trip will be on scoring a breakthrough on the North Korea nuclear disarmament talks, which involve China, Russia and Japan, as well as South and North Korea.

But even while raising expectations of a coming declaration by Pyongyang on its full nuclear capability, which has been the sticking point in the process, Rice revealed that new intelligence could stymie the effort. Apparently, this intelligence comes from traces of uranium found on the pages of documents that were handed over by North Korea last month, which were supposed to help US officials verify the declaration that is still awaited.

by Frank James

The long, hard-fought Democratic primary campaign produced plenty of fodder for Republicans to use against the all-but-official Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, in the form of criticism by other Democrats of Obama's relatively short national-security resume.

On the morning after Obama claimed enough delegates to capture the Democratic nomination, the Republican National Committee launched a new web ad called "Democrats vs. Obama" which uses Democrats' own words expressing doubts about Obama's readiness to be commander-in-chief.

The ad features Sen. Hillary and former President Bill Clinton , Sen. Joe Biden, and John Edwards raising questions about his experience.

Such ads will likely be a major part of the Republican strategy against Obama.

And why not? Voters expect the opposition to criticize a party's putative nominee so they're more likely to discount Republican charges against a Democrat.

But criticisms from respected members of the same party could have more resonance, especially in a general-election context. At least, that's what Republicans are hoping for.

by Andrew Zajac

The Washington-based Secrecy News, a careful observer of government behavior in the capital, has posted this item about the appointment of a pair of federal judges, including James Zagel, of the Northern District of Illinois, to the secret court overseeing government applications for domestic eavesdropping under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

INTEL SURVEILLANCE COURT GETS TWO NEW JUDGES

Two new judges were named to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court this week, Secrecy News has learned, one a Clinton appointee and one a Reagan appointee.

Judge Mary A. McLaughlin of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Judge James B. Zagel of the Northern District of Illinois were appointed to seven year terms on the secret court by the Chief Justice to replace Judge James G. Carr and Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, whose terms expired on May 18.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is responsible for reviewing and approving government applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for domestic electronic surveillance and physical search of suspected foreign intelligence agents or terrorists.

But it does more than that. The Court also reinterprets the terms of the Act in an undisclosed fashion, producing in effect a body of "secret law," a matter discussed at an April 30 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"The FISC has in fact issued... legally significant decisions that remain classified and have not been released to the public," observed Judge John D. Bates, a member of the FIS Court, when he denied an ACLU motion for disclosure of portions of those decisions last December.

The appointment of new judges to the FIS Court assumes particular importance today because of a proposal pending in Congress that would refer existing lawsuits alleging illegal warrantless surveillance to the secret FIS Court in what would likely be a severely constrained adjudicative process. The proposal is being considered as an alternative to granting outright immunity to telephone companies that allegedly cooperated with the President's surveillance program.

Judge Mary A. McLaughlin was appointed to the bench in 2000 by President Clinton. She was formerly an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, and a special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on terrorism during the Ruby Ridge hearings in 1995.

Judge James B. Zagel was appointed in 1987 by President Reagan. Judge Zagel is "an intelligent, tough-minded jurist," said the Chicago Council of Lawyers, a public interest association, in a 1991 evaluation. However, "some lawyers are concerned that he will bring a political agenda to bear in certain classes of cases."

The new appointments were confirmed for Secrecy News today by Sheldon L. Snook of the administrative office at the D.C. District Court.

A new appointment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, an appeals court, has not yet been formally announced, he said.
But the Providence Journal (RI) reported on April 14 that Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold of the 8th District had been named to the Review Court.

An updated roster of the membership of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is here.

"During calendar year 2007, the Government made 2,371 applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for authority to conduct electronic surveillance and physical search for foreign intelligence purposes," the Justice Department told Congress in the latest annual report on FISA activity.

by Bay Fang

Although mystery still swirls around Saturday's sudden release of Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan after over three months in captivity, the Pakistani government insists it did not free any militants in exchange.

"There was no exchange of any militants or terrorists for the release of the ambassador," said Nadeem Kiani, spokesman for the embassy of Pakistan in Washington, DC.

Even if there were no explicit tit-for-tat, the release of Azizuddin could have been used as a pawn in the ongoing negotiations between tribal militants in the region bordering Afghanistan and the young coalition government led by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

A prisoner exchange took place last week as a direct result of the negotiations, with the release of dozens of suspected militants for army officers in Waziristan, a tribal area considered a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

by Mark Silva

President Bush, who has refrained from a role in his party's presidential campaign until now, plans to welcome Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the party's putative 2008 nominee, to the White House tomorrow.

Bush's backing is a double-edged sword for McCain, who fought Bush in the 2000 Republican primaries and who critized the Bush administration for its early conduct of the war in Iraq and its treatment of suspected terrorists in captivity. McCain has aligned with Bush on the latest war strategy and has insisted that torture is illegal under any circumstances.

The president's endorsement represents a consolidation of the Republican Party for a candidate who greatly needs to convince the conservative base that he is conservative enough.

Yet the public embrace of a president whose public approval has hovered at an average of 33 perccent for the past year in the Gallup Poll will readily be taken by his Democratic opponent as a symbol that a vote for McCain is a vote for a continuation of the Bush White House.

At the White House on Wednesday, Bush plans a noon welcome for McCain at the North Portico -- a grand formal entrance at the front door of the mansion. Bush will host a lunch for McCain in the private dining room.

Bush then plans a public statement with John McCain in the Rose Garden.

by Frank James

As has been widely reported, the Air Force stunned almost everyone yesterday by deciding to award its huge, $35 billion contract for new airborne refueling tankers to a partnership formed by Northrop Grumman, the Los Angeles-based company, and EADS Inc., the European maker of Airbus airliners.

Boeing, headquartered in Chicago but with a large workforce in Washington State, was the big loser. Boeing had said that if it got the contract to build the new tanker based on its 767 airliner, it would provide enough work to keep 40,000 U.S. workers busy.

But Boeing lost. So the aircraft will be built in Europe, with the conversion work being done in Mobile, Ala. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Mobile operations would employ far fewer people than Boeing says it would have, apparently 1,200 to do the modification work.

Aerospace workers protest in Everett, Wash. after the Air Force announced it chose Northrop Grumman Corp. and Airbus parent EADS over Boeing to supply air-refueling tankers, on Friday, Feb. 29, 2008. (AP Photo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dan DeLong)

This is obviously not making people in Washington State happy. The Seattle P-I puts it this way:

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., a senior member of the House panel that oversees military spending, predicted "a firestorm of criticism about this decision." He said many lawmakers "don't want Airbus building this plane."

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told reporters she was "frustrated, angry and in shock at this announcement."

The state's senior senator said she couldn't understand the choice of giving a massive contract to a foreign-based business, considering that the U.S. is teetering on a recession.

"You can put an American sticker on a plane and call it American, but you can't call it American made. They are clearly going to be made overseas, and that is a factor we all have to be thinking about, whether we want American planes built overseas."

Murray said Boeing will be debriefed by the Air Force later this month on why it lost out, and the company could then appeal the decision. The Government Accountability Office then has 100 days to examine the appeal, Murray said. She said it was premature to speculate on a congressional inquiry, but added, "We clearly want to be supportive of Boeing and find out the facts."

by James Oliphant

Sen. Russ Feingold is standing on the floor of the Senate right now and he isn't happy.

The Democrat from Wisconsin has had a rough day. The effort of Feingold and his allies to amend the Protect America Act has largely failed on a grand scale.

An amendment from Sen. Chris Dodd that would deny telecom companies retroactive immunity for helping the government eavesdrop on phone calls without a warrant after 9/11 was voted down. As was an amendment from Sen. Arlen Specter that would have substituted the government for the telecom companies in pending legislation over the warrantless wiretapping program. An amendment offered by Sen. Dianne Feinstein that would have made the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act the sole authority for a warrantless wiretapping program also failed.

The White House said today that the Senate bill is one that the president can support. That's a victory for President Bush and Senate Republicans, who are seeking to make expanded wiretapping powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act permanent.

Feingold calls the current bill a "dangerous piece of legislation."

"This bill is a tragic retreat," Feingold said. "It is abdication of this body's duty to stand up for the rule of law."

The Senate is expected to have a final vote on the bill this afternoon. Then it goes to the House, which is battling the clock. That chamber will adjourn on Thursday and Friday for the funeral of Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.)

The Protect America Act, which enhanced the government's wiretapping program under FISA, expires on Friday. The current legislation would replace it. The White House has said it would not support another exension.

by Mark Silva

"The young men we remember today did not live to be called veterans,'' President Bush said today at a memorial for "fallen soldiers'' at American Legion Post 121 in Waco, Texas.

"They died in a distant land fighting terror, spreading freedom, and protecting their fellow citizens from danger,'' Bush said. "The valor and selfless devotion of these men fills their families with immeasurable pride.

"Yet this pride cannot fill the hole in their loved ones' aching hearts, or relieve the burden of grief that will remain for a lifetime,'' he said. " In their sorrow, these families need to know, and families all across the nation of the fallen need to know that your loved ones served a cause that is good, and just, and noble.

"And as their Commander-in-Chief,'' the president said, with an oft-repeated promise about his commitment to the war, "I make you this promise: their sacrifice will not be in vain.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy before a joint session of Congress, November 7, 2007, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Robert Byrd looking on approvingly. (ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images)

by Matthew Hay Brown

Thirty-seven hundred words, and not one of them the four-letter one that has divided France and the United States.

In his address to Congress this morning, French President Nicolas Sarkozy led lawmakers on a tour of the Greater Middle East that spanned from Afghanistan through Iran and Lebanon to Israel. But the unabashedly pro-American conservative tiptoed right past Iraq, where French officials and citizens alike have opposed the U.S. invasion and occupation.

“We may have differences, we may disagree on things, we may even have arguments, as in any family, but in times of difficulty, in times of hardship, one stands true to one’s friends, one stands shoulder to shoulder with them, one supports them, and one helps them,” Sarkozy told the joint session, as rendered in the official translation.

Thus dispensing with any allusion to the war – which Sarkozy also has opposed, although not as vocally as his predecessor, Jacques Chirac – he focused his remarks on the historical friendship between the two nations, and areas for future cooperation.

Among these, he named Afghanistan, where he said France would “remain engaged … for as long as it takes;” Iran, whose development of nuclear arms he called “unacceptable;” and the Holy Land, where he said France “wants security for Israel” and “demands that there be a state for the Palestinians.”

Andrew Zajac

We don't get one of these very often: A press release from the Yemeni Embassy.

This one, marked 'urgent', advised that contrary to earlier reports Jamal al-Badawi, one of the purported masterminds of the bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in 2000, was not free and is, in fact, in Yemeni custody.

Andrew Zajac

Bill Leonard isn't a household name, but among open records advocates in Washington he commands respect for his willingness to challenge the Bush Administration on what some regard as an improperly expansive notion of information that should be kept secret.

Leonard, the director of the Information Security Oversight Office since 2002, will resign effective January 2008, according to an announcement Friday by ISOO's parent, the National Archives and Records Administration.

by Gabrielle Russon

While the nation is safer domestically since Sept. 11--- because of better trained airport screeners and heightened intelligence capabilities--- the United States is failing on the international front, the two former leaders of the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks said today.

“We’ve made some progress but still have a very long way to go,” Thomas Kean, the commission’s former chairman, said at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars here.

To gain the upper-hand in winning the war on terror, U.S. foreign policy needs to beckon to Muslims, said Lee Hamilton, the commission’s former vice chairman and a former Indiana congressman.

“American foreign policy has to convey to Islam that we want to help Muslims achieve a better life,” Hamilton said.

He called terrorism a “generational problem” that goes deeper than just eliminating al Qaeda's leaders.

“The long-term---the durable threat---is the radical Islamic young people,” Hamilton said. “If you’re going to win the war on terror, you’re going to have to deal with these hundreds of millions of Muslims from across the world."

by Mike Dorning

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin promised today that he would no longer vote to fund the war in Iraq unless the money is tied to a withdrawal strategy.

Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, has been a consistent critic of the war in Iraq but is a pragmatic party leader attuned to political reality. The Illinois senator voted against authorization for the war in 2002 but has since voted for the emergency funding packages that have financed the war.

Durbin’s commitment--and a forceful speech he delivered against new funding for Bush’s war strategy--positions an influential Senate leader in favor of a hard line at a moment when some Democrats are signaling a willingness to compromise on war funding.

Congress is preparing for a struggle over continuation of the troop build-up in Iraq following a report on progress to be delivered next week by Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker. The White House has indicated it will request a supplemental funding package of approximately $40 billion to pay for continuing the Bush Administration’s “surge” strategy.

by Mike Dorning

The Barack Obama presidential campaign sent out a memo to reporters a few minutes ago to make the case that the recent controversies he has stirred on foreign policy matters are an indication he would change international relations for the better.

The Democratic candidate has stirred controversy and criticism from rivals first for a comment he made at a debate that he would be willing to meet with foreign dictators whom the United States has previously shunned. He stirred further controversy this week by first threatening to take unilateral military action against Al Qaeda havens in remote border regions of Pakistan and then for telling an Associated Press reporter that he would not use nuclear weapons on terrorist targets in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

The memo, from Samantha Power, one of the candidate's top foreign policy advisers, follows:

August 3, 2007

Barack Obama was right; the conventional wisdom was wrong. And today, we see the consequences. Iraq is in chaos. According to the National Intelligence Estimate, the threat to our homeland from terrorist groups is “persistent and evolving.” Al-Qaeda has a safe-haven in Pakistan. Iran has only grown stronger and bolder. The American people are less safe because of a rash war. (continued below)

Samantha Power, Obama adviser and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Problem from Hell, a history of the American response to genocide, receiving an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at Brown University's commencement in May. AP Photo/Stew Milne.

Obama spelled out his strategy for going after terrorists in Pakistan in an address at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars yesterday. Today, he told the Associated Press, he draws the line at the use of nuclear weapons. AP photo by Charles Dharapak.

by Mike Dorning

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told the Associated Press today that as president he would forswear use of nuclear weapons of any type against terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Obama made his comments a day after issuing a public threat to attack Al Qaeda operatives hiding in a remote region of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border if Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf did not act against the terrorists.

As of yet, there has not been any serious discussion of a nuclear strike in Afghanistan or Pakistan. But the U.S. government historically has maintained ambiguity about the circumstances under which it would use nuclear weapons.

There has been a spirited debate within military and foreign policy circles about the option of using tactical nuclear weapons in Iran to destroy suspected underground nuclear production facilities. Even tactical nuclear weapons can produce radioactive fallout that affect civilian health over a wide area, particularly if they are detonated close to the ground, as they would need to be for maximum effectiveness against hardened targets.

In his comments, Obama specifically cited a reluctance to use nuclear armaments in a strike "involving civilians"--a criteria for use of nuclear weapons that potentially could have far-reaching consequences for military policy. Still, the comments reported by the Associated Press were based on a brief exchange as Obama was leaving an event and did not include much elaboration from the senator.

The Associated Press report follows:

by Mike Dorning

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said last night that fears of widespread sectarian and ethnic conflict in Iraq following a U.S. troop drawdown are not sufficient reason to justify the continued deployment of a large U.S. millitary force there.

The Illinois senator argued that logic, used by some supporters of the war in Iraq, was inconsistent with the U.S. military posture toward countries in the midst of genodical conflict, such as Congo and Sudan.

"Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea,” he said.