I awoke this morning to the sounds of President Bush giving a press conference. I played my usual game: How long till he says something a little off? Three questions later he came up with the phrase "increasing more troops", but overall he was coherent. Apparently, nothing focuses this man like failure. He seemed energized by the gigantic mess he's made, and eager to make the mess worse.

There's clearly something psychological at work here. He's spent his life trying to talk himself out of bad situations of his own making, so maybe this has put him in a comfort zone. He finally has the conflict in Iraq on his own terms, which means it is all screwed up. He seemed defiant and almost happy as he sparred with the reporters about this fiasco. The war isn't wearing him down - he seemed invigorated and joyfully alive.

One of the reporters' questions was directly about this. It referenced the other day when President Bush sought to assure us that he was sleeping well as the mayhem in Iraq unfolds. It struck many as quite revealing - one of those slips that let you know who he really is. What does it say about a man when he's in the middle of the Iraq War - a conflict he caused - and yet he sleeps well at night?

One obvious answer is that he has sociopathic tendencies - an inability to feel the normal range of human emotions. Apparently someone in the White House noticed the problem with that sleep comment the other day, so the President was ready for the question this morning. The reporter discussed how devastated President Johnson was during our failure in Vietnam. You could see it wearing him down, and it helped him decide not to run again. The reporter asked how this President could appear so relaxed knowing people were dying because of him. President Bush went into an answer that seemed rehearsed to me. His voice didn't crack with emotion, like his father's would have. He said that it was the toughest part of his Presidency but that he had questioned himself about Iraq and realized he was right, so that was that.

At this point, I came up with another theory abut the Iraq War - one that I haven't heard expressed exactly like this anywhere else. Certainly others have mentioned that this President could be a sadist. He has the anecdotal behavior from his childhood - the cruelty to animals. His profound lack of curiosity in the world could stem from a realization that there's something missing in his own soul and he knows it. This lack of crucial feeling makes him mad - he realizes he's different, and though he rehearses answers about human emotions, every now and then the truth slips out.

We also know he gravitates to torture. When McCain wanted an anti-torture bill, President Bush fought it with everything he had - even threatening to veto it. After it was signed, President Bush made it clear that he would not follow it if he didn't want to - torture was clearly one practise he did not want to lose. Of course, he said all the right things - downright lies, actually - about how America does not torture, but there was a glimpse into his personality with that. This comment about sleeping well while others suffer and die because of his actions, was another.

So what's my theory? Okay, the reason the President seems so animated right now - the reason he is focused and alert - is that the Iraq War has given him something that his sadistic, sociopathic personality craved from the first time he was called mediocre, and teased for being who he is. The Iraq War is his adult version of torturing little animals. He has finally made it to the Super Bowl of Cruelty, and it's really working for him. The reason he's sleeping so well, and talking so energetically, is precisely because - in his twisted way - he is happy right now. Why? Because he's using the Iraq War to torture us all.

"For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not" -- Jeremiah 10:3-4.

Just in case you haven't been paying attention-and poll numbers suggest that a frighteningly large number of Americans still aren't-Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC at 8:00 PM Eastern underwent a tremendous shift right around the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. That night Keith Olbermann delivered not only the speech of the year but the speech of the millennium. So far. It was a Special Comment that excoriated Pres. Bush for every lie, hypocrisy and dumbheaded policy move he's initiated since the attacks. Overnight, the spirit of Edward R. Murrow was reborn. And finally real patriotic Americans had a mainstream media show they could watch without having to be restrained by family or loved ones when the urge to throw something hard and solid at the television screen overcame them.

Since that groundbreaking moment, Keith Olbermann has delivered several more Special Comments, most of them taking direct aim at the astounding lack of leadership qualities in the President of the United States. Olbermann has taken the White House to task for everything from spewing more venom at his Democrat opponents than the terrorists to believing that the Constitution doesn't really apply to them. In the process he has become the premier spokesman for the disenfranchised American patriot who has watched in disbelief as Americans by the millions-come on, you know you're one of them-confused supporting the eternal ideal of America with supporting a patently delusional spoiled brat rummy whose decision to send men and women to war is based on nothing more substantial that wanting to prove to mommy that he's the real man in the family.

Keith Olbermann has filled a deep chasm in America; a chasm the existence of which allowed a madman to lie and swindle his way to the mass murder of far more people than Osama Bin-Laden was responsible for killing on 9/11. Had there been just a handful of Edward R. Murrow five years ago, maybe some tough questions would have been demanded of Bush. Maybe instead of joyously "embedding" themselves in tanks, speaking as mouthpieces for the Pentagon, those reporters might have asked to see some actual physical evidence of those WMDs that Donald Rumsfailed and Dick Cheney-fact: The Vice President of the United States shot a man in the face, fact!---were so fond of telling Americans existed.

Well, better late than never. If there is one thing we can rely upon, it's the desire of American television network heads to copy whatever is popular at the time. Therefore, since Keith Olbermann is clearly on a roll, can we perhaps look forward to other networks-Fox exempted, of course, since their CEO is also the President of the United States, apparently-copying MSNBC's success? CNN already has Jack Cafferty daily stinging the White House on the Situation Room; why not replace Glen "Islam is the only religion that endorses violence" Beck with Cafferty. (And while we're at it, give Cafferty an extra hour and remove the excessively shrill Nancy Grace from the airwaves forever.)

Scientists at the Harvard University School of Public Health recently examined 136 studies on coco -- the foundation for chocolate -- and found it does seem to boost heart health, according to an article in the European journal Nutrition and Metabolism.

"Studies have shown heart benefits from increased blood flow, less platelet stickiness and clotting, and improved bad cholesterol," says Mary B. Engler, Ph.D., a chocolate researcher and director of the Cardiovascular and Genomics Graduate Program at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing. These benefits are the result of cocoa's antioxidant chemicals known as flavonoids, which seem to prevent both cell damage and inflammation.

Better blood pressure

If yours is high, chocolate may help. Jeffrey Blumberg, Ph.D., director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at Tufts University, recently found that hypertensive people who ate 3.5 ounces of dark chocolate per day for two weeks saw their blood pressure drop significantly, according to an article in the journal Hypertension. Their bad cholesterol dropped, too.

People who ate the same amount of white chocolate? Nothing. (It doesn't have any cocoa -- or flavonoids.) Word to the wise: 3.5 ounces is roughly equal to a big bar of baking chocolate, so the participants had to cut about 400 calories out of their daily diets to make room. But you probably don't have to go to those lengths. Just a bite may do you good, Blumberg says.

Muscle magic

Chocolate milk may help you recover after a hard workout. In a small study at Indiana University, elite cyclists who drank chocolate milk between workouts scored better on fatigue and endurance tests than those who had some sports drinks. Yoo-hoo!

TLC for your skin

German researchers gave 24 women a half-cup of special extra-flavonoid-enriched cocoa every day. After three months, the women's skin was moister, smoother, and less scaly and red when exposed to ultraviolet light. The researchers think the flavonoids, which absorb UV light, help protect and increase blood flow to the skin, improving its appearance.

Brain gains

It sounds almost too good to be true, but preliminary research at West Virginia's Wheeling Jesuit University suggests chocolate may boost your memory, attention span, reaction time, and problem-solving skills by increasing blood flow to the brain. Chocolate companies found comparable gains in similar research on healthy young women and on elderly people.

The Bush administration is planning a test run of America's emergency military call-up, stoking speculation about a return to a draft at a time when the White House is considering sending more troops to Iraq.
The secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, provided further evidence that the administration was leaning towards sending more troops to Iraq, acknowledging the high financial and human toll of the war so far, and indicating there would be further costs to bear.

[snip]

As Ms Rice spoke, the Selective Service System, the government agency charged with providing troops to the military in an emergency, said it was preparing its first readiness exercise since 1998.

Officials were adamant there were no plans to bring back conscription. Planning for the call-up exercise is to begin in mid-2007, and the exercise is tentatively scheduled to take place in 2009.

But fears about a draft have flared periodically during the Iraq war. On Thursday, they were reignited when Jim Nicholson, the secretary for veteran affairs, said he believed "society would benefit" if the US were to bring back the draft.

In an indication of the sensitivities surrounding the draft, the White House moved to counter the remarks. He withdrew his statement hours later.

But it was impossible to entirely avoid concerns about a call-up in a week in which President George Bush said he had asked the Pentagon to look into a permanent expansion in the size of the army and the Marine Corps. Mr Bush is expected to make an announcement in the new year about whether he will order additional troops to Iraq in a last attempt to try to bring stability to Baghdad and western Anbar province.

Reports this week said Mr Bush is weighing the possibility of sending in an additional 20,000-30,000 troops in the short term.

The Pentagon has warned that such a course could bring to breaking point a military already under strain by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The deepening unpopularity of the Iraq war has made it difficult for the Pentagon to meet recruitment targets. Earlier this year, the Pentagon announced it was lowering the standards for new recruits, and would take older men as well as those who performed poorly on intelligence tests.

Barely a day into the job, no doubt to hit the ground running and demonstrate the seriousness of the problem, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates flew off to Baghdad with a gaggle of generals and aides (including politburo "minders" from the Vice President's office, but that's another point) to further his education.

Back this weekend, Gates is expected to brief the President with his preliminary observations and recommendations.

With Congress out of session, one might ask what the rush is: after all, Washington has already dithered for five weeks since the unambiguous election mandate.

What's the rush? Well, there are American boys and girls fighting and dying in Iraq everyday.

This gets me back to some troubling insight regarding Bob Gates' strategic sense. It is a tradition for the Secretary to serve the troops turkey at Thanksgiving and visit the front lines at Christmas.

Gates couldn't have gone on Wednesday and planned to stay a couple of more days in the war zone through Christmas: for tradition, for compassion?

He has to be back in the United States this weekend to deliver - what -- the thousandth briefing the President has gotten on Iraq?

Welcome to Gates' first misstep, or at least a gigantic window onto this political operator's true stripes. Bob Gates couldn't spend two more days in Iraq to pay homage to the troops because the front to him is in Washington.

I don't want to make too much of Gates' stiff-arming the troops: they'll get over it and no doubt would like the Secretary to spend Christmas in his office if it means coming up with an exit strategy so that next Christmas is different.

But what was the trip to Baghdad for, if not as a photo-opportunity? It isn't as if Gates walked the streets of Sadr City or secretly met with the enemy. Whatever briefings Gates received he could have just as easily gotten in Washington, that is, if he's in such a rush.

But Gates did say one really interesting thing about his observations upon meeting with U.S. commanders and after meetings with the Iraqi Prime Minister and Minister of Defense in the Green Zone and at the airport:

"I think perhaps the Study Group was here a short enough time that perhaps we didn't have the opportunity to explore in the kind of depth I have today with Iraqi officials, so it may have just been my misinterpretation from early September. But what struck me today was the amount of planning, the amount of thinking, the amount of coordination that had gone on on the Iraqi side in terms of how they intend to move forward, and also their thinking in terms of the role that we can play, so I think that it's that change that I noticed."

Thinking strategically, what is Gates saying?

He is paving the way for the President to say in January that the Iraq Study Group didn't have a complete understanding of the Iraqi situation and that they did not fully understand both the commitment of the Iraqi government to create security and the progress they are making.

Surge or no surge, it is now clear that Gates has already made up his mind: we cannot withdraw. Not when the Iraqis are doing so well!

Gates spoke yesterday of the "progress of the Iraqi government in its own -- not only in its own commitment but in its thinking about how to address some of these security issues."

He spoke of "the desire of the Iraqi government to take a leadership role in addressing some of the challenges that face the country" and their desire to "show that leadership to the Iraqi people."

Election mandate or not, Gates will stand firm with the President that the United States can not withdraw now or any time soon. Not when such "progress" is being made!

Back at the front in Washington, Gates has already heard an earful from the uniformed leadership and the Joint Chiefs that they do not favor proposals -- "Democratic Party proposals" -- to withdraw troops from Iraq or set a timetable for withdrawal. A senior military officer who has participated in many meetings tells me that the chiefs are unimpressed with the Iraq Study Group's withdrawal by early 2008 proposal.

"I especially emphasized to the prime minister the steadfastness of American support and our enduring presence in the Persian Gulf," Gates said in his final press conference yesterday.

The steadfastness of American support? When only three out of every ten Americans supports the war?

Sorry America, there is no Santa Claus, at least not in the form of Robert Gates. We may have thought the humble, open-minded outsider was going to blow in to sweep away the old. Instead he is shaping up to be flaccid yes man, one who can't even get his timing right.

He's not doing much in public, but behind the scenes, White House political guru Karl Rove is as aggressive as ever in making policy arguments within the administration–and his influence is still pervasive, White House insiders tell U.S. News.

"He's been a big player and he remains a big player," says a senior adviser to President Bush. "He doesn't get everything he wants, but his role has not diminished."

Since the November election, Rove has been promoting the contrarian idea that the Republicans lost their majorities in the House and Senate not because of Bush's unpopularity or because voters turned against the Iraq war but because congressional Republicans didn't sufficiently live up to their core ideals, such as a commitment to spending restraint, a muscular foreign policy, and strict ethics. In other words, associates say, Rove is arguing that the GOP lost control because congressional Republicans weren't conservative enough.

White House insiders say Bush is counting on Rove, who is the president's main political adviser and deputy chief of staff, to define "common ground" in dealing with the Democrats who now control Congress. In Rove's view, that means the White House shouldn't stray too far from the conservative base and should continue making policy from the political right–and not give too much ground to the Democrats. Rove argues privately that the Dems should also reach out to the White House and that Bush shouldn't do most of the compromising. One of Rove's theories is that the Democrats can be maneuvered into a series of difficult choices next year as they try to enact their legislative agenda and pass the federal budget.

The central choice, according to Rove, will be to cut spending or raise taxes. If congressional Democrats cut spending, their liberal base will be alienated. If they raise taxes, rank-and-file voters will be unhappy. GOP insiders suspect that Rove also had a big hand in distancing Bush from the Iraq Study Group because he believed the bipartisan panel was too critical of current Iraq policy. Rove, insiders say, believes that victory is still achievable and that Bush should pursue it as vigorously as he can.

The five stone steps in front of me once led to a porch, or maybe directly to the front door of a house. There is no way to be sure. The house is completely gone. All that’s left are the five steps, one of which is painted with the address, 1630 Reynes St. The steps sit alone, like a piece of minimalist art, at the front of a small vacant lot full of weeds and rubble. Next door is a house that is completely capsized, fallen over on its side like a sunken ship.

Welcome to the Lower Ninth Ward. You won’t find much holiday spirit here. In every direction, as far as it is possible to see, is devastation.

On another lot, piled high with the rubble of a ruined house, I saw a middle-aged man standing in the front yard weeping. He wore a dirty white baseball cap and he was sobbing like a child. I walked toward him to ask a question but he waved me away.

Whatever you’ve heard about New Orleans, the reality is much worse. Think of it as a vast open wound, this once-great American city that is still largely in ruins, with many of its people still writhing in agony more than a year after the catastrophic flood that followed Hurricane Katrina.

Enormous stretches of the city, mile after mile after mile, have been abandoned. The former residents have doubled-up or tripled-up with relatives, or found shelter in the ubiquitous white trailers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or moved (in some cases permanently) to Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and beyond. Some have simply become homeless.

“This is a ghostly city, if you ask me,” said Sheila Etheridge, a waitress whose home was destroyed and whose three children are staying with relatives near Atlanta. “It gets real spooky when the sun goes down. They let me sleep in the back of the restaurant. But I’ll tell you the truth, we don’t have too many customers. You see what those neighborhoods are like. They’re empty. The people gone.”

The recovery in New Orleans has gone about as well as the war in Iraq.

In mid-September 2005, with parts of the city still submerged and soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division on patrol, President Bush made a dramatic, flood-lit appearance in historic Jackson Square. In a nationally televised speech he promised not only to do all that he could to rebuild the Gulf Coast, but also to confront the terrible problem of deep and persistent poverty.

“That poverty,” said the president, “has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.”

Now, more than a year later, the population of New Orleans is less than half what it was before the storm. The federal government has allocated billions for the city’s recovery but much of that money has been wasted or remains hopelessly tied up in the bureaucracy. Very little has gotten to the neediest victims, the people who were poor to begin with and then lost their homes and their livelihoods to the storm.

Many of the city’s hospitals and schools remain closed. Some will never reopen. There is very little public transportation. The politicians have come up with a stunning array of post-Katrina initiatives, but one grandiose recovery plan after another has faltered.

The terrible experience of the flood and its aftermath has left an imprint on the minds of most residents that’s as distinct as the water lines that stain so many of the city’s buildings. A cabdriver’s voice faltered as he told me about an obese woman who put pillows under her arms as the floodwaters were rising. She thought the pillows would help her float.

“She drowned,” the driver said.

Emotional and psychological problems are rampant, but there is a drastic shortage of mental health professionals to treat them. People are suffering from severe anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and other illnesses. Doctors told me that large numbers of mentally ill individuals have gone more than a year without taking their prescribed medication.

Many of the poor residents in the city feel that they’ve been abandoned by the government and the rest of America, and that the president broke his promise to help. “We’re in terrible trouble down here,” said a woman named Delores Goode, who stood outside the Superdome asking passers-by if they knew where she might find work as a baby sitter. “We were all over the television last year. Now we’re back to being nobody.”

The debate over sending more U.S. troops to Iraq intensified yesterday as President Bush signaled that he will listen but not necessarily defer to balky military officers, while Gen. John P. Abizaid, his top Middle East commander and a leading skeptic of a so-called surge, announced his retirement.

At an end-of-the-year news conference, Bush said he agrees with generals "that there's got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished" before he decides to dispatch an additional 15,000 to 30,000 troops to the war zone. But he declined to repeat his usual formulation that he will heed his commanders on the ground when it comes to troop levels.

Bush sought to use the 52-minute session, held in the ornate Indian Treaty Room in a building adjacent to the White House, to sum up what he called "a difficult year for our troops and the Iraqi people" and reassure the American public that "we enter this new year clear-eyed about the challenges in Iraq." Asked about his comment to The Washington Post this week that the United States is neither winning nor losing the war, Bush pivoted forward. "Victory in Iraq is achievable," he said.

The tension between the White House and the Joint Chiefs of Staff over the proposed troop increase has come to dominate the administration's post-election search for a new strategy in Iraq. The uniformed leadership has opposed sending additional forces without a clear mission, seeing the idea as ill-formed and driven by a desire in the White House to do something different even without a defined purpose.

[snip]

The internal struggle over troop levels in Iraq has exposed a schism between civilian and military leadership 45 months into a war that, at the moment, has no end in sight. Testifying before a Senate committee Nov. 15, Abizaid bluntly rejected the surge option, saying: "I do not believe that more American troops right now is the solution to the problem. I believe that the troop levels need to stay where they are." Other generals have been equally resistant in public and private comments.

Bush has traditionally paid public deference to the generals, saying any decisions on moving U.S. forces in the region would depend on their views. At a Chicago news conference in July, for instance, Bush said he would yield to Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Iraq commander.

"General Casey will make the decisions as to how many troops we have there," Bush said, adding: "He'll decide how best to achieve victory and the troop levels necessary to do so. I've spent a lot of time talking to him about troop levels. And I've told him this: I said, 'You decide, General.' "

By yesterday, however, Bush indicated that he will not necessarily let military leaders decide, ducking a question about whether he would overrule them. "The opinion of my commanders is very important," he said. "They are bright, capable, smart people whose opinion matters to me a lot." He added: "I agree with them that there's got to be a specific mission that can be accomplished with the addition of more troops before I agree on that strategy."

A senior aide said later that Bush would not let the military decide the matter. "He's never left the decision to commanders," said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so Bush's comments would be the only ones on the record. "He is the commander in chief. But he has said he will listen to those commanders when making these decisions. That hasn't changed."

More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

''This is reality-check research,'' said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. ''Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades.''

Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people -- about 33,000 of them women -- in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found.

Finer said the likelihood of Americans having sex before marriage has remained stable since the 1950s, though people now wait longer to get married and thus are sexually active as singles for extensive periods.

The study found women virtually as likely as men to engage in premarital sex, even those born decades ago. Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44.

''The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds,'' Finer said.

Under the Bush administration, such programs have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.

Marijuana is the most valuable cash crop in the United States, worth more to its growers than corn and wheat combined, according to a new report by a leading American drug reform lobbyist that cites the US government's own figures.

Decades of government efforts to crack down on both the cultivation and consumption of pot have had a counter-productive effect, since even the most conservative government estimates suggest domestic marijuana production has increased tenfold in the past 25 years. It is the leading cash crop in 12 states, and one of the top five crops in 39 states.

The report's author, Jon Gettman, says it is "larger than cotton in Alabama, larger than grapes, vegetables and hay in California, larger than peanuts in Georgia, and larger than tobacco in South and North Carolina".

[snip]

Since the presidency of George Bush Snr in the late 1980s, official policy has been one of zero tolerance of all illegal narcotics. Recently, the federal government has been unforgiving of the medical marijuana movement, and federal agents have raided numerous marijuana farms that were fully licensed under state law.

It has not cut down use of the drug.

Support for President Bush's management of the Iraq war has dropped to an all-time low even as his overall approval remains tepid but steady, according to a CNN poll released Monday.

The survey, conducted Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corp., found support for Bush's handling of the Iraq conflict has decreased to 28 percent from 34 percent in a poll taken October 13-15.

And a record 70 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Bush's war management, up from 64 percent in the October poll.

Though 67 percent of those polled oppose the war in Iraq, only 54 percent said the U.S. should withdraw its troops immediately or within the next year, the poll states.

Asked if they thought victory in Iraq was possible, 48 percent said yes and 50 percent said no. Half of those polled said a stalemate was the most likely outcome of the war.

An executive staff member at New Life Church in Colorado Springs has resigned after admitting to sexual misconduct and other mistakes - the result of an examination of the staff's moral makeup after the ouster of senior pastor Ted Haggard, a church official said Sunday.

Christopher Beard, who headed a ministry that trained young adults in leadership skills, stepped down Friday after admitting to "a series of decisions displaying poor judgment, including one incident of sexual misconduct several years ago," said Rob Brendle, an associate pastor at the 14,000- member church.

Citing confidentiality over personnel issues, Brendle would not discuss the nature of the sexual misconduct except to say it did not involve Haggard or a minor.

Beard, a New Life employee for nine years, was not married at the time of the incident but is now, Brendle said. Beard could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Before his resignation, Beard oversaw a church ministry called twentyfourseven, a nine-month training program for young adults in missionary work and leadership. He has led mission trips to 53 countries and had a role in this year's church Easter drama.

In 2002, Beard was reprimanded by church officials after he staged a missionary training drill using fake assault weapons. A SWAT team was put on alert after a passing motorist thought the guns were real. Brendle said that incident played a role in Beard's departure.

Beard's church biography states he has a business degree from Oral Roberts University - Haggard's alma mater - and a master's degree in Christian counseling. He previously worked as a psychotherapist at a leading mental institution, the biography states.

I THINK ALL intelligent, patriotic and informed people can agree: It would be great if the U.S. could find an Iraqi Augusto Pinochet. In fact, an Iraqi Pinochet would be even better than an Iraqi Castro.

Both propositions strike me as so self-evident as to require no explanation. But as I have discovered in recent days, many otherwise rational people can't think straight when the names Fidel Castro and Augusto Pinochet come up.

Let's put aside, at least for a moment, the question of which man was (or is) "worse." Suffice it to say, both have more blood on their hands than a decent conscience should be able to bear. Still, if all you want to do is keep score, then Castro almost surely has many more bodies on his rap sheet. The Cuba Archive estimates that Castro is responsible for the deaths of at least 9,240 people, though the real number could be many times that, particularly if you include the estimate of nearly 77,000 men, women and children who have died trying to flee the "socialist paradise."

But there are measures besides body counts. Castro took Cuba, once among the most prosperous nations in Latin America and destined for First World status, and rendered it poorer than nearby Jamaica and heading Haiti-ward. The island is a prison, and trying to leave can be a capital crime.

Civil liberties are a sham, freedom of speech and freedom of the press are nonexistent, and dissidents are routinely thrown in prison. Civil society has become deeply politicized and, hence, corrupted. In the 1990s, Castro dabbled with liberalizing the economy after welfare from the Soviet Union dried up, but he soon realized that free markets bring other freedoms, so he cast the Cuban people back into poverty rather than risk any threat to his rule. Now Castro, rudely taking a long time to die, is transferring all power to his brother, Raul. Not exactly an open primary. On the plus side, we are told, Cuba has very impressive literacy, longevity and infant mortality rates — and lavish hotels for hard-currency-carrying Westerners.

Now consider Chile. Gen. Pinochet seized a country coming apart at the seams. He too clamped down on civil liberties and the press. He too dispatched souls. Chile's official commission investigating his dictatorship found that Pinochet had 3,197 bodies in his column; 87% of them died in the two-week mini-civil war that attended his coup. Many more were tortured or forced to flee the country.

But on the plus side, Pinochet's abuses helped create a civil society. Once the initial bloodshed subsided, Chile was no prison. Pinochet built up democratic institutions and infrastructure. And by implementing free-market reforms, he lifted the Chilean people out of poverty. In 1988, he held a referendum and stepped down when the people voted him out. Yes, he feathered his nest from the treasury and took measures to protect himself from his enemies. His list of sins — both venal and moral — is long. But today Chile is a thriving, healthy democracy. Its economy is the envy of Latin America, and its literacy and infant mortality rates are impressive.

I ask you: Which model do you think the average Iraqi would prefer? Which model, if implemented, would result in future generations calling Iraq a success? An Iraqi Pinochet would provide order and put the country on the path toward liberalism, democracy and the rule of law. (If only Ahmad Chalabi had been such a man.)

Now, you might say: "This is unfair. This is a choice between two bad options." OK, true enough. But that's all we face in Iraq: bad options. When presented with such a predicament, the wise man chooses the more moral, or less immoral, path. The conservative defense of Pinochet was that he was the least-bad option; better the path of Pinochet than the path toward Castroism, which is where Chile was heading before the general seized power. Better, that is, for the United States and for Chileans.

POWELL: Let’s be clear about something else, Bob, that gets a little confusing. There are really no additional troops. All we would be doing is keeping some of the troops who were there there longer and escalating or accelerating the arrival of other troops.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you about that because… do we have the troops? You seem to be suggesting that we don’t.

POWELL: I’m suggesting that what general Shoemaker said the other day before a committee looking at the reserve and national guard, That the active army is about broken. General Shoemaker is absolutely right. All of my contacts within the army suggest that the army has a serious problem in the active force.

[Snip]

SCHIEFFER: Let’s… you’ve talked about… I take it you think that the 160,000 troops are not going to be any more successful than 140,000.

POWELL: Nobody has made the case to me that 140,000… I have not seen a case that persuades me that it would be better at 150 and 160. Frankly, that would take a surge that you have to pay for later by not having troops that can come in and replace some of the 140,000 there.

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.

Nathan Ertel, the American held with Mr. Vance, brought away military records that shed further light on the detention camp and its secretive tribunals. Those records include a legal memorandum explicitly denying detainees the right to a lawyer at detention hearings to determine whether they should be released or held indefinitely, perhaps for prosecution.

The story told through those records and interviews illuminates the haphazard system of detention and prosecution that has evolved in Iraq, where detainees are often held for long periods without charges or legal representation, and where the authorities struggle to sort through the endless stream of detainees to identify those who pose real threats.

“Even Saddam Hussein had more legal counsel than I ever had,” said Mr. Vance, who said he planned to sue the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on grounds that his constitutional rights had been violated. “While we were detained, we wrote a letter to the camp commandant stating that the same democratic ideals we are trying to instill in the fledgling democratic country of Iraq, from simple due process to the Magna Carta, we are absolutely, positively refusing to follow ourselves.”

A spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s detention operations in Iraq, First Lt. Lea Ann Fracasso, said in written answers to questions that the men had been “treated fair and humanely,” and that there was no record of either man complaining about their treatment.

She said officials did not reach Mr. Vance’s contact at the F.B.I. until he had been in custody for three weeks. Even so, she said, officials determined that he “posed a threat” and decided to continue holding him. He was released two months later, Lieutenant Fracasso said, based on a “subsequent re-examination of his case,” and his stated plans to leave Iraq.

Mr. Ertel, 30, a contract manager who knew Mr. Vance from an earlier job in Iraq, was released more quickly.

Mr. Vance went to Iraq in 2004, first to work for a Washington-based company. He later joined a small Baghdad-based security company where, he said, “things started looking weird to me.” He said that the company, which was protecting American reconstruction organizations, had hired guards from a sheik in Basra and that many of them turned out to be members of militias whom the clients did not want around.

Mr. Vance said the company had a growing cache of weapons it was selling to suspicious customers, including a steady flow of officials from the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The ministry had ties to violent militias and death squads. He said he had also witnessed another employee giving American soldiers liquor in exchange for bullets and weapon repairs.

On a visit to Chicago in October 2005, Mr. Vance met twice with an F.B.I. agent who set up a reporting system. Weekly, Mr. Vance phoned the agent from Iraq and sent him e-mail messages. “It was like, ‘Hey, I heard this and I saw this.’ I wanted to help,” Mr. Vance said. A government official familiar with the arrangement confirmed Mr. Vance’s account.

In April, Mr. Ertel and Mr. Vance said, they felt increasingly uncomfortable at the company. Mr. Ertel resigned and company officials seized the identification cards that both men needed to move around Iraq or leave the country.

On April 15, feeling threatened, Mr. Vance phoned the United States Embassy in Baghdad. A military rescue team rushed to the security company. Again, Mr. Vance described its operations, according to military records.

“Internee Vance indicated a large weapons cache was in the compound in the house next door,” Capt. Plymouth D. Nelson, a military detention official, wrote in a memorandum dated April 22, after the men were detained. “A search of the house and grounds revealed two large weapons caches.”

On the evening of April 15, they met with American officials at the embassy and stayed overnight. But just before dawn, they were awakened, handcuffed with zip ties and made to wear goggles with lenses covered by duct tape. Put into a Humvee, Mr. Vance said he asked for a vest and helmet, and was refused.

They were driven through dangerous Baghdad roads and eventually to Camp Cropper. They were placed in cells at Compound 5, the high-security unit where Saddam Hussein has been held.

Only days later did they receive an explanation: They had become suspects for having associated with the people Mr. Vance tried to expose.

“You have been detained for the following reasons: You work for a business entity that possessed one or more large weapons caches on its premises and may be involved in the possible distribution of these weapons to insurgent/terrorist groups,” Mr. Ertel’s detention notice said.

Mr. Vance said he began seeking help even before his cell door closed for the first time. “They took off my blindfold and earmuffs and told me to stand in a corner, where they cut off the zip ties, and told me to continue looking straight forward and as I’m doing this, I’m asking for an attorney,” he said. “ ‘I want an attorney now,’ I said, and they said, ‘Someone will be here to see you.’ ”

Their legal rights, laid out in a letter from Lt. Col. Bradley J. Huestis of the Army, the president of the status board, allowed them to attend the hearing and testify. However, under Rule 3, the letter said, “You do not have the right to legal counsel, but you may have a personal representative assist you at the hearing if the personal representative is reasonably available.”

Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel were permitted at their hearings only because they were Americans, Lieutenant Fracasso said. The cases of all other detainees are reviewed without the detainees present, she said. In both types of cases, defense lawyers are not allowed to attend because the hearings are not criminal proceedings, she said.

Lieutenant Fracasso said that currently there were three Americans in military custody in Iraq. The military does not identify detainees.

Mr. Vance and Mr. Ertel had separate hearings. They said their requests to be each other’s personal representative had been denied.

At the hearings, a woman and two men wearing Army uniforms but no name tags or rank designations sat a table with two stacks of documents. One was about an inch thick, and the men were allowed to see some papers from that stack. The other pile was much thicker, but they were told that this pile was evidence only the board could see.

The men pleaded with the board. “I’m telling them there has been a major mix-up,” Mr. Ertel said. “Please, I’m out of my mind. I haven’t slept. I’m not eating. I’m terrified.”

Mr. Vance said he implored the board to delve into his laptop computer and cellphone for his communications with the F.B.I. agent in Chicago.

Each of the hearings lasted about two hours, and the men said they never saw the board again.

“At the end, my first question was, ‘Does my family know I’m alive?’ and the lead man said, ‘I don’t know,’ ” Mr. Vance recounted. “And then I asked when will we have an answer, and they said on average it takes three to four weeks.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, let’s drop the partisanship for a second and recognize that the media coverage of Sen. Tim Johnson’s (D-SD) sudden illness has been nothing but disgraceful.

The first reports I heard on this issue came early yesterday on CNBC, and immediately the discussion was about how this could change the balance of power in the Senate. I was disgusted. (Update follows with how the network evening broadcasts covered the story.)

As my daughter and I left the gym in the early evening, she questioned me about the Senator, and how this would impact politics. I was a bit shocked, and asked her where she had heard about his malady. She said that it was on the television in the ladies’ locker room, and the announcers were discussing how this might hurt the Democrats.

Let’s get a grip for a second here, folks. A man is fighting for his life right now, and that should be much more important than how this impacts who will control the Senate. Yet, just moments ago, this was the headline of an Associated Press article: “GOP governor has the power to appoint Senate replacement.” These were the first two paragraphs:

Control of the U.S. Senate could be determined by Republican Gov. Mike Rounds if a replacement must be named for Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson.

State law would allow the governor to appoint a temporary replacement for a vacant Senate seat until the next general election in 2008, when Johnson's term expires.

How disgraceful. Our thoughts and prayers should be going out to this man and his family without any discussion about the balance of power…unless we really have lost all sense of decency, morality, and humanity in this country.

The spotlight was not Bill Clinton's. It belonged, instead, to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as she celebrated her reelection victory.

So Bill stood poker-faced. He clasped his hands. He held his head high. He clapped when appropriate. He smiled ever so faintly. And he did not move. When Hillary offered thanks to him and turned around to acknowledge him, he did not step forward, did not step to her side. He stayed put, several feet away, as if taking pains to soak up not one ray of the spotlight he so dearly loves but that, now more than ever, must be hers and hers alone.

It was political Kabuki -- Bill Clinton, held in check -- on a night that some observers saw as the start of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Bill is poised to mightily help or deeply hurt his wife's White House prospects. Either way, his impact will be profound as he undertakes the unprecedented role of ex-president turned male campaign spouse to the first woman ever to have a serious shot at the presidency.

Yes, Bill can deliver political superstardom. He's a razor-sharp political strategist. He knows the institution of the presidency. His fundraising chops are unrivaled. All that is well and good -- perhaps too good, according to a September CNN poll, which showed his favorable rating higher than hers, 60 percent to 50 percent.

But there's the other Bill, the one who could be a massive and messy distraction. That Bill is the ex-president known for his outsize appetites and indiscipline, the Bill who still revels in the limelight, who runs with global jet-setters. He is prone to pop up in the press for even the smallest of curiosities, like being spotted at dinner with another woman -- bad news for an ex-president already infamous for marital infidelity.

If she runs, will voters focus too much on him? Will they remember too much of the national trauma known as "that woman" (Monica Lewinsky) -- and the presidential prevaricating, hair-splitting (what is"is," anyway?) and impeachment that followed? Can voters look at Bill without thinking of sex? If they don't think of sex, they'll likely think the word: "president," which may also not be such a good thing for the spouse who wants that title.

From now until Election Day 2008, the national fascination with the Clintons and their marriage will be central to the race. The media-industrial complex will again feed like hungry hounds on the Clintons, their past and future; on the Clintons and their mysteries; on power and politics as the Clinton lifeblood propelling her run against all odds.

She will face haters. She'll face sexists. There'll be folks who think she's power-mad, including some still queasy about what she knew and when she knew it when it came to Bill's marital indiscretions.

As Islamic fundamentalism seeps into society and sectarian warfare escalates, more and more women live in fear of being kidnapped or raped. They receive death threats because of their religious sects and careers. They are harassed for not abiding by the strict dress code of long skirts and head scarves or for driving cars.

For much of the 20th century, and under various leaders, Iraq was one of the most progressive Middle Eastern countries in its treatment of women, who were encouraged to go to school and enter the workforce. Saddam Hussein's Baath Party espoused a secular Arab nationalism that advocated women's full participation in society. But years of war changed that.

In the days after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, many women were hopeful that they would enjoy greater parity with men. President Bush said that increasing women's rights was essential to creating a new, democratic Iraq.

But interviews with 16 Iraqi women, ranging in age from 21 to 52, show that much of that postwar hope is gone. The younger women say they fear being snatched on their way to school and wonder whether their college degrees will mean anything in the new Iraq. The older women, proud of their education and careers, are watching their independence slip away.

[snip[

Encouraged by Bush, women began to reassert themselves after 2003. But the collapse of security, the absence of the rule of law and the presence of extremist groups have weakened the budding movement, activists said. In the past year, its leaders have received death threats. Politicians have accused them of working in collusion with enemy countries, and police officers have harassed them, activists said.

On June 4, Abbas received an anonymous e-mail at her Baghdad office warning her to leave Iraq within 10 days. Three days later, another e-mail said she would be killed for not complying with the first threat.

The gunmen came at night to drag Mohammed Halim away from his home, in front of his crying children and his wife begging for mercy.
The 46-year-old schoolteacher tried to reassure his family that he would return safely.

But his life was over.

He was partly disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes. The remains were put on display as a warning to others against defying Taleban orders to stop educating girls.