From McClatchy Washington Bureau
By Ron Hutcheson

The bitter fight over the latest Iraq spending bill has all but obscured a sobering fact: The war will soon cost more than $500 billion.

That’s about ten times more than the Bush administration anticipated before the war started four years ago, and no one can predict how high the tab will go. The $124 billion spending bill that President Bush plans to veto this week includes about $78 billion for Iraq, with the rest earmarked for the war in Afghanistan, veterans’ health care and other government programs.

Congressional Democrats and Bush agree that they cannot let their dispute over a withdrawal timetable block the latest cash installment for Iraq. Once that political fight is resolved, Congress can focus on the president’s request for $116 billion more for the war in the fiscal year that starts on Sept. 1.

The combined spending requests would push the total for Iraq to $564 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

What could that kind of money buy?

Read More Price Tag

From Washington Post
By Glenn Kessler

The number of terrorism incidents in Iraq — and resulting deaths, injuries and kidnappings — skyrocketed from 2005 to 2006, according to statistics released by U.S. counterterrorism officials yesterday.

Of the 14,338 reported terrorist attacks worldwide last year, 45 percent took place in Iraq, and 65 percent of the global fatalities stemming from terrorism occurred in Iraq. In 2005, Iraq accounted for 30 percent of the worldwide terrorist attacks.

The figures, compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and released with the annual State Department Country Reports on Terrorism, showed that the number of incidents in Iraq rose 91 percent, from 3,468 in 2005 to 6,630 in 2006.

Almost all of those incidents involved the death, injury or kidnapping of at least one person.

Read More Terrorism

From The Telegraph UK
By Joshua Mitnick

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, defied calls for his resignation last night after a government report accused him of committing a series of errors in his handling of the war in Lebanon last summer.

The report accuses Ehud Olmert [centre] of displaying a “lack of judgment, responsibility and caution”

The Israeli premier was left clinging on to power after being accused of “severe failure” in his prosecution of the conflict with Hizbollah. During the conflict, which saw intense bombing of the Shia group’s infrastructure in Lebanon, thousands of missiles rained down on northern and central Israel as Hizbollah responded.

The long-awaited official investigation into the conflict - which broke out after Hizbollah guerrillas killed three soldiers and captured two others in a cross-border raid - dealt a harsh blow that further weakened the embattled prime minister.

Read More Failure

From NY Times
By Steven R. Weisman

Paul D. Wolfowitz defended himself vigorously on Monday, declaring that it would be unjust and frankly hypocritical for the World Bank’s board to find him guilty of ethical lapses. But he also hinted that he would discuss whether to resign as bank president if the board cleared him of misconduct.

Appearing before a committee of the bank’s board of directors and going on the attack after weeks of silence, Mr. Wolfowitz also charged that he had been the victim of orchestrated leaks of false, misleading, incomplete and personal information intended to undermine my effectiveness as president.

The goal of this smear campaign, I believe, is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy that I am an ineffective leader and must step down for that reason alone, even if the ethics charges are unwarranted, he said. I, for one, will not give in to such tactics. And I will not resign in the face of a plainly bogus charge of conflict of interest.

Mr. Wolfowitz’s lawyer released his client’s comments in a statement on Monday.

Read More Wolfowitz

From The Nation
By John Nichols

The rest of the world does not hate the United States. For the most part, other countries and their peoples are extraordinarily generous and supportive of the U.S., even if they may object to our president and his military misadventures.

Yet, if the rest of the world does not hate us, surely they must have a hard time figuring this country out.

After Hurricane Katrina struck in the late summer of 2OO5, countries around the world rushed to aid the U.S. In all, they offered more than $854 million in cash and oil supplies that were to be sold to raise money for the relief efforts.

Now, the better part of two years later, only about $4O million has been spent to aid disaster victims and their communities.

The vast majority of aid offers were turned down, even though they came with no strings attached and clearly were needed — as the U.S. government still has not restored New Orleans and other storm-damaged communities, and still has not gotten hundreds of thousands of dislocated men, women and children home.

Worse yet, according to documents obtained by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington [CREW] watchdog group, aid that arrived went to waste. Among to records obtained by CREW, State Department officials debated among themselves about whether to tell the Italian government that shipments of medicine and other supplies that had gotten through to the southeastern United States, were left to spoil in the elements.

Finally, one official said, “Tell them we blew it.”

Read more Blew It

From Crooks and Liars
By SilentPatriot

Yes, you read that correctly. The Iraqi parliament - who our brave young men and women are fighting to protect and preserve - is planning on taking a two month vacation during the months of July and August. This is wrong on so many levels. Exactly what are we fighting for again? This doesn’t seem like a government committed to getting things done, despite our huge investment and sacrifice. Absolutely shameful. And we thought the 109th Congress was the “do-nothing” champion. It should come as no surprise that Secretary Rice’s top priority is the having the Iraqis finish up the oil laws.

Watch Video

From Think Progress
By Nico

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow returned to the job this morning and hit the ground running. In his first interview with CBS’s Early Show, Snow declared that the White House never tried to link Iraq and September 11.

Snow was asked about former CIA Director George Tenet’s remarks from 60 Minutes:

TENET: We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction, and control, complicity with al Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America. Period.

Snow responded, Wait a minute, Chris. The president has been saying exactly that all along. I don’t know what the headline is. He insisted there has been no attempt to try to link Saddam to September 11.

Watch Video

From The National Journal
By Murray Waas

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales signed a highly confidential order in March 2006 delegating to two of his top aides — who have since resigned because of their central roles in the firings of eight U.S. attorneys — extraordinary authority over the hiring and firing of most non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department. A copy of the order and other Justice Department records related to the conception and implementation of the order were provided to National Journal.

In the order, Gonzales delegated to his then-chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, and his White House liaison “the authority, with the approval of the Attorney General, to take final action in matters pertaining to the appointment, employment, pay, separation, and general administration” of virtually all non-civil-service employees of the Justice Department, including all of the department’s political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation. Monica Goodling became White House liaison in April 2006, the month after Gonzales signed the order.

The existence of the order suggests that a broad effort was under way by the White House to place politically and ideologically loyal appointees throughout the Justice Department, not just at the U.S.-attorney level. Department records show that the personnel authority was delegated to the two aides at about the same time they were working with the White House in planning the firings of a dozen U.S. attorneys, eight of whom were, in fact, later dismissed.

Read more Gonzales

From Yahoo News
By Robert Burns

WASHINGTON - Documents captured in recent fighting in Baghdad included two identity cards for access to the fortified Green Zone, which contains Iraqi government headquarters, and an ID card for access to the U.S. Embassy, the Pentagon says.

The area where the documents were captured — just west of the Green Zone — has been a stronghold of Sunni extremists linked to al-Qaida, said Army Col. Steven Townsend, commander of 3rd Stryker Brigade that led the operation.

Townsend, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon on Monday in a videoconference from Baghdad, did not mention the discovery of the identity cards. That information was provided separately by Pentagon officials after he spoke.

The adequacy of security in the Green Zone, also known as the international zone, has recently come into question, particularly in the aftermath of the April 12 suicide bombing in the Iraqi parliament building’s dining hall. One lawmaker was killed in the blast, which was claimed by an al-Qaida-led amalgam of Sunni insurgents.

About two weeks before that attack, two suicide vests were found unexploded in the Green Zone. Less than a week before that, a rocket attack in the restricted zone killed an American contractor and an American soldier.

Read more Green Zone

From The Khaleej Times

The dollar was broadly unchanged on Monday, losing earlier gains and within sight of a record low against the euro, with near-term prospects for the US economy decidedly negative.

After last week’s soft US gross domestic product growth data, investors had lifted the euro to a lifetime high above $1.3680 and could push it past $1.3700 if Friday’s US payrolls number is below forecast.

The next major body blow for the dollar, I suspect, will likely be weak labor reports, said Stephen Jen, global head of currency research with Morgan Stanley in London. The timing is not yet ripe … for investors to be long dollar, despite valuation and market positioning, he said in a note.

The euro was down 0.1 percent from late on Friday against the dollar, trading at $1.3640. It had hit a lifetime high of $1.3683 on Friday, according to electronic platform EBS.

The dollar index — a measure of the greenback’s value against a basket of six major currencies — was flat at 81.51.

April has been the cruelest month for the dollar all year. The dollar index is down 1.7 percent in April, the biggest monthly decline since November 2006.

Read more Falling Dollar