Don Siegelman's first interview out of prison:

Former Governor Don Siegelman of Alabama, released from prison today on bond in a bribery case, said he was as convinced as ever that politics played a leading role in his prosecution.

In a telephone interview shortly after he walked out of a federal prison in Oakdale, La., Mr. Siegelman said there had been “abuse of power” in his case, and repeatedly cited the influence of Karl Rove, the former White House political director.

“His fingerprints are smeared all over the case,” Mr. Siegelman said, a day after a federal appeals court ordered him released on bond and said there were legitimate questions about his case.

Update: Here's video of Siegelman's very brief statement just after leaving prison.

From the AP:

The White House says an aide to President Bush has resigned because of the alleged misuse of grant money from U.S. Agency for International Development.

Presidential spokesman Scott Stanzel says the former aide, Felipe Sixto, had been a special assistant to the president for intergovernmental affairs. Stanzel said Sixto was promoted to that position on March 1 and that he came forward on March 20 to tell his superiors about the alleged wrongdoing.

Stanzel said it involved improprieties involving the use of grant money and Sixto's former employer, the Center for a Free Cuba. Stanzel says the matter has been turned over to the Justice Department.

Update: Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for A Free Cuba, told me that the center "became aware of the allegations weeks ago, and we informed USAID immediately." He said that the USAID inspector general had been investigating Sixto's possible misuse of the funds. He said he had "no idea" how much money was missing, but that "we're anxious to cooperate in any way shape or form to get to the very bottom of it. We expect that all funds in question will be returned to the American taxpayer."

Sixto has worked at the Center for approximately three years, he said. Sixto joined the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House in July of last year.

The Center for a Free Cuba describes itself as "an independent, non-partisan institution dedicated to promoting human rights and a transition to democracy and the rule of law on the island."

Update: Here's how Stanzel puts the allegations, according to the AP:

"Mr. Sixto allegedly had a conflict of interest with the use of U.S. AID funds by his former employer," Stanzel said. He said he did not know how much money was involved or the particulars of the allegations.

In the wake of yesterday's ruling, Siegelman's out and about. From the AP:

Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman was released on bond from a federal prison Friday, saying he remains upbeat despite serving nine months for corruption.

Leaving the prison in a black sport utility vehicle, he stopped on a road outside the lockup to comment. He wore a ragged shirt that appeared to be prison clothing.

"I may have lost my freedom for awhile, but I never lost faith," Siegelman, 62, told reporters.

From The New York Times:

When officers from the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed hundreds of hours of videotapes documenting harsh interrogations in 2005, they may have believed they were freeing the government and themselves from potentially serious legal trouble.

But nearly four months after the disclosure that the tapes were destroyed, the list of legal entanglements for the C.I.A., the Defense Department and other agencies is only growing longer. In addition to criminal and Congressional investigations of the tapes’ destruction, the government is fighting off challenges in several major terrorism cases and a raft of prisoners’ legal claims that it may have destroyed evidence.

“They thought they were saving themselves from legal scrutiny, as well as possible danger from Al Qaeda if the tapes became public,” said Frederick P. Hitz, a former C.I.A. officer and the agency’s inspector general from 1990 to 1998, speaking of agency officials who favored eliminating the tapes. “Unknowingly, perhaps, they may have created even more problems for themselves.”...

Despite all the legal complications, those in the C.I.A. who got rid of the videotapes may have achieved one of their presumed goals: preventing a torture prosecution, said Deborah Colson, a senior associate at Human Rights First.

“It may be impossible to reconstruct any criminal conduct that was caught on the tapes,” Ms. Colson said.

You win some, you lose some.

Oh, man. Not cool. Not only has the Army suspended any further contracts for AEY (the shady contractor run by 22 year-old Efraim Diveroli), but the U.S. attorney in Miami along with Department of Justice prosecutors in Washington have picked up the case, The Miami Herald reports.

The probe launched as a result of an audit by the Army's Procurement Fraud Branch (it's unclear whether the probe launched as a result of The New York Times' inquiries), where officials determined that Diveroli appeared to have lied when he claimed that the ammunition he was providing came from Hungary when it in fact was made in China -- which he would have done because the Army prohibits using Chinese ammo.

If Diveroli did lie to the government, that would be a crime. You can read the Army's audit letter, in addition to the letter to Diveroli suspending his ability to win any further contracts, here.

The Herald also uncovered a second arrest for Diveroli: one for drunk driving earlier this month. That's the mugshot above. The earlier one, as the Times reported in the initial story, was for beating up a parking valet and getting busted with a fake ID (ironically just after his 21st birthday). The mugshot for that one is to the right. I guess sometimes the pressures of being a big time defense contractor are just too much.

Update: A number of stories have featured Diveroli's sadly out of date MySpace page. How a multi-million dollar contractor only has one friend I cannot understand.

For the curious, Radar was also able to get in touch with AEY's 25 year-old masseur VP (or someone claiming to be him, at least) through his MySpace page.

A federal judge has ruled that the Department of Justice is allowed to exempt 68 pages of e-mails sent between White House and Department of Justice officials from a Freedom of Information Act request made by the Democratic National Committee - despite the fact that the e-mails were sent using accounts controlled by the Republican National Committee - because the RNC accounts were used for both official and political business. The DNC had argued that because the accounts were controlled by the RNC, the e-mails could not be exempted from a Freedom of Information request. (The Politico)

As Americans in the Green Zone were told to remain in fortified structures and the Iraqi government prepared for an emergency session, President Bush announced that "normalcy is returning back to Iraq" despite the fact that "some ... seem unwilling to acknowledge that progress is taking place." (Reuters, McClatchy)

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, the lawyer for Osama bin Laden's former driver, alleges that the Bush administration is attempting to turn his client's trial into a political show trial by orchestrating war-crimes convictions. Mizer has accused Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, who serves as the legal advisor to the White House official overseeing the military tribunals -- of exercising "unlawful command influence" and being "so closely aligned" "with the prosecutorial function that he cannot continue to provide the requisite impartial advice to the convening authority." (LA Times)

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It's official: no Bush Administration official, current or former, can hold a candle to EPA chief Stephen Johnson when it comes to chutzpah.

Alberto Gonzales, to be sure, would normally be stiff competition. But for all his lies, half-truths, and careful distortions, Alberto Gonzales somehow lacked something in the way of chutzpah. Maybe it was the way he sometimes stuttered out his answers, his un-recollections, and apologies. Johnson, by stark contrast, does the job with bureaucratic sangfroid.

Last April, the Supreme Court found in a landmark ruling that the EPA could no longer avoid regulating greenhouse gases. It had to make a decision. Even then, it was apparent to all observers what the EPA's finding must be. The EPA's scientists, wonks and lawyers went to work on it. And they found, not surprisingly, that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, which means they must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. Johnson himself reviewed that work, disputed part of it, but agreed with the overall thrust of the finding. The EPA then, having dotted the i's and crossed the t's, sent the finding to the White House in December. And there things stopped.

So the finding is finished. It is sitting on the shelf at the White House. Also sitting on a shelf is the EPA's 300-page draft of a rule to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. But such regulation can go nowhere until the endangerment finding is made official.

We reported earlier this month that Johnson was transparently stonewalling. His stated rationale then was that the energy bill which the president signed into law last December had complicated things, a transparently bogus argument, since the only law at issue is the Clean Air Act.

But as Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) noted in a statement last night, the Heritage Foundation has been floating an alternative strategy for stonewalling: the EPA should call for public comment on the rule. Such a move would delay any endangerment finding for months. And, The Los Angeles Times reports, "during an economic downturn, seeking comprehensive public comment and a 'go-slow' approach would be far better," the think tankers reasoned (presumably they're all for environmental regulation during boom times). At the very least, the move would push the issue into the next administration, which is really all pro-business conservatives can hope for.

And yesterday, that's exactly what Johnson did. As he proudly proclaimed in his letter (pdf) announcing the move:

"This approach gives the appropriate care and attention this complex issue demands. Rather than rushing to judgment on a single issue, this approach allows us to examine all the potential effects of a decision with the benefit of the public's insight. In short, this process will best serve the American public."

His spokesman was similarly proud:

"No matter what is shouted or screamed from the rooftops, this is truly a historic moment. No administration has taken this step to evaluate this new pollutant."

And that's what I call chutzpah.

Keep in mind that Johnson has also -- against the unanimous recommendation of his staff -- blocked California's attempt to pass stiff greenhouse gas limits. After all, what good would it be for him to stonewall instituting limits at the EPA if California and 16 other states went ahead with their proposed limits? No good at all.

So what will EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson be doing for two weeks in April in Australia -- besides not testifying before Congress, that is? EPA Deputy Press Secretary Tim Lyons finally got back to us:

"The Administrator is set to discuss shared environmental goals and challenges with our global partners, while learning about their innovative approaches to carbon sequestration, water treatment and management, methane capture, pesticide risk reduction, and resource sustainability."

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson will not be rushed, no sir. We gave you the rundown earlier this month of how Johnson had managed to ignore a landmark Supreme Court ruling. The EPA could no longer avoid taking a stance on whether greenhouse gases were covered by the Clean Air Act. And it's become crystal clear from statements that Johnson has made where the agency will come down on the issue.

But of course Johnson has avoided just that. And now he says that, a year after the ruling came down, he needs a couple more months to think on it. From the AP:

The government made clear on Thursday it will not be rushed into deciding whether to regulate emissions linked to global warming, as the Supreme Court directed nearly a year ago.

Such action "could affect many (emission) sources beyond just cars and trucks" and needs to be examined broadly as to other impacts, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency wrote lawmakers.

Stephen Johnson said he has decided to begin the process by seeking public comment on the implications of regulating carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, on other agency rules that cover everything from power plants and factories to schools and small businesses.

That process could take months and led some of his critics to suggest he was shunting the sensitive issue to the next administration.

The man continues to impress with his chutzpah.

From The Birmingham News:

Former Gov. Don Siegelman will be released from prison, after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted him an appeal bond, the lead prosecutor in the case said.

Acting U.S. Attorney Louis Franklin said he received a courtesy call from the court today. "He's going to be released," Franklin said.

He said he was disappointed but said, "The 11th Circuit has the discretion to do that and I respect that."

Update: I just got off the phone with Hiram Eastland, one of Siegelman's lawyers, who said that today the appeals court had issued a "straightforward" four-page order simply finding that there were, indeed, "substantial questions" raised by Siegelman's appeal. The ruling overruled the controversial finding by the district judge in the case, which had sent Siegelman immediately to prison after his conviction. Eastland said that Siegelman could be released as early as tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest. "We're obviously very gratified that the court gave it that thoughtful consideration," he said. "The governor is coming home!"

Siegelman's release means, obviously, that the House Judiciary Committee won't have to go through the trouble of getting Siegelman released for him to testify.

From CQ:

Embattled Rep. Rick Renzi , R-Ariz., has asked a federal judge in Arizona to delay his scheduled April 29 trial on conspiracy, fraud, extortion and money laundering charges stemming from a land-swap deal.

Prosecutors will not oppose the Arizona lawmaker’s bid to have his trial deemed a “complex case,” which would allow more time to sort out motions, discovery and other pre-trial issues.

Renzi’s lawyers also said that because he is a sitting congressman who faces allegations related to his legislative activities, they would raise the issue of legislative privilege afforded by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause.

Dude! It's time to testify before Congress!

House sleuth Henry Waxman (D-CA) read the news today, oh boy. And he wants 22 year-old AEY President Efraim Diveroli, his 25 year-old VP (and masseur) David Packouz, and the company's general manager, also 25, to testify before Congress about how they managed to get a $300 million U.S. contract to supply (sometimes forty year-old) ammunition to the Afghan Army, among other contracts. Waxman also wants officials from the Department of Defense and Department of State to appear as well. He's set the date of April 17th.

Update: Here's a copy of the letter that the Army sent AEY on Tuesday, suspending any further contracts. The attached letter also runs through all of the contracts AEY won since 2004.

Hardly a week goes by where EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson isn't interrogated by lawmakers, sued by states and environmental groups, or undermined by his own angry staff. So you can understand the urge to get the hell out of Dodge.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), one of Johnson's main persecutors as the chair of the Senate environmental committee, has got wind that Johnson is leaving for a prolonged trip to Australia. She is, typically, dubious. "I understand that you and a substantial number of EPA staff members are planning a trip to Australia, and that this trip has made you unavailable to testify before this Committee on certain important matters through much of April," she writes in a letter to Johnson today.

And she wants to know a little more about it such as: what it's for. "If your goal is to learn about actions to address global warming, I suggest that you visit California, which has moved ahead aggressively with greenhouse gas controls," she writes, in a bit of irrepressible snark. Johnson, against the unanimous recommendation of his staff, has blocked California's attempt to institute tougher greenhouse gas limits on cars and trucks. Boxer also inquires about the cost of the trip, noting that Bush has proposed to cut $500 million from the EPA's budget next year.

My call to the EPA wasn't returned. But an environmental committee spokesperson said that Boxer's staff have heard that the trip will last for two weeks.

The full letter is below.

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Last week, the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles disbanded his office's public corruption unit.

Current and former prosecutors from the office said that the move will hurt the office's ability to take on crooked pols (while LA USA Thomas O'Brien has argued the opposite). We also posted an email from a former prosecutor in the office saying that O'Brien may have handled the move badly (by reportedly threatening lawyers in the unit to stay quiet about the move), but he's "no Rachel Paulose."

Given that the major role that the LA office plays, however, (including its handling of the investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA)). Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wants some answers about the move. So yesterday she sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey -- who, perhaps coincidentally, is giving a speech today in California about the Department's public corruption efforts.

You can read the letter in full below.

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The House Judiciary Committee will seek to hold a hearing where ex-Gov. Don Siegelman (D-AL), currently in a federal prison after conviction on bribery charges, will testify before the committee. A spokesperson for the committee told me that the panel has notified the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons of their intent, and that the official request to the Department would be forthcoming. The spokesperson said that the committee was hoping to hold the hearing sometime this spring.

The committee has already held one hearing on Siegelman's case, a hearing that featured one of Siegelman's former defense lawyers, Doug Jones. Jones testified that prosecutors had told him in 2004 after the collapse of one prosecution against Siegelman, that Justice Department officials had ordered them to "take another look at everything." An effort which ultimately resulted in the successful second prosecution -- a prosecution full of holes as 60 Minutes showed in its report last month.

Three anti-war U.S. lawmakers, Jim McDermott (D-WA), Mike Thompson (D-CA), and then-Representative David E. Bonior (D-MI), accepted travel to Iraq in October 2002 that had been secretly financed by Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency. The travel was arranged through a Michigan charity official who has been charged with "with setting up the junket for Hussein's government." None of the lawmakers have been charged with any misconduct and a DoJ spokesman says there's no evidence any of them knew that Hussein had backed the trip. (AP)

U.S. military leaders privately informed President Bush yesterday about their concerns that U.S. military forces have been strained by the long war in Iraq. The briefing was conducted in a secure room at the Pentagon referred to as "the tank." Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell remarked, "armed with all that, the president must now decide the way ahead in Iraq." (USA Today)

Puerto Rico Governor Anibal Acevedo-Vila has been implicated in a corruption probe involving federal campaign-finance crimes. Fund-raiser Robert M. Feldman and three other Philadelphians have also been charged. The governor was charged with conspiracy to violate federal campaign laws, wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the the IRS and filing a false tax return. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

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Courtesy of The New York Times, I'm proud to present to you a brand new member of the Bush Administration War Profiteer Hall of Shame: 22 year-old Efraim Diveroli, whose company AEY has been awarded approximately $300 million in contracts by the Pentagon.

How does a 22 year-old get a multi-million dollar defense contract? you ask. “AEY’s proposal represented the best value to the government," the Army tells the Times. (Never mind that AEY was headed by a guy who'd been busted by the police for carrying a fake ID.)

AEY's fattest contract came in January of last year, when a Pentagon contract made AEY, "which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach,... the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces." AEY's VP is 25 and a licensed masseur. AEY also had a $5.7 million contract for rifles for Iraqi forces, among others.

As the Times found out, AEY fulfilled that contract by dealing with a variety of shady arms dealers (one Czech, one Swiss) to get their hands on ammo stockpiles in the old Eastern bloc. And as far as ensuring the quality of the munitions? Here's how it went in Albania:

Albania offered to sell tens of millions of cartridges manufactured as long ago as 1950. For tests, a 25-year-old AEY representative was given 1,000 cartridges to fire, according to Ylli Pinari, the director of the arms export agency at the time of the sale.

No ballistic performance was recorded, he said. The rounds were fired by hand.

Not surprisingly, the Afghan army has been unhappy with the product. AEY shipped the decades-old ammo in cardboard boxes -- apparently to save money on shipping charges. And the Times reports that the boxes arrived in Afghanistan spilling out of the boxes, "revealing ammunition manufactured in China in 1966." It's illegal to deal in Chinese arms.

In response to the Times' questions, the Army has suspended AEY "from any future federal contracting, citing shipments of Chinese ammunition and claiming that Mr. Diveroli misled the Army by saying the munitions were Hungarian."

But surely the most memorable details of the story (which is well worth reading in full) have to do with a kid trying to wiggle out of legal trouble on the basis of his work fighting terror:

By [2005, when Diveroli became president of the company at the age of 19, taking over from his father], pressures were emerging in Efraim Diveroli’s life. In November 2005, a young woman sought an order of protection from him in the domestic violence division of Dade County Circuit Court….

Mr. Diveroli sought court delays on national security grounds. “I am the President and only official employee of my business,” he wrote to the judge on Dec. 8, 2005. “My business is currently of great importance to the country as I am licensed Defense Contractor to the United States Government in the fight against terrorism in Iraq and I am doing my very best to provide our troops with all their equipment needs on pending critical contracts.”…

On Dec. 21, 2006, the police were called back to the condominium. Mr. Diveroli and AEY’s vice president, David M. Packouz, had just been in a fight with the valet parking attendant.

The fight began, the police said, after the attendant refused to give Mr. Diveroli his keys and Mr. Diveroli entered the garage to get them himself. A witness said Mr. Diveroli and Mr. Packouz both beat the man; police photographs showed bruises and scrapes on his face and back.

When the police searched Mr. Diveroli, they found he had a forged driver’s license that added four years to his age and made him appear old enough to buy alcohol as a minor. His birthday had been the day before.

“I don’t even need that any more,” he told the police, the report said. “I’m 21 years old.”

Diveroli would have been prohibited from dealing in contracts if he'd been convicted of possession of a forged document, which is a felony, the Times reports, but "to avoid a conviction on his record, Mr. Diveroli entered a six-month diversion program for first offenders in May 2007 that spared him from standing trial."

Unfortunately, it seems that AEY is unwinding with all this public attention:

[I]n Miami Beach, even before the suspension, AEY had lost staff members. Michael Diveroli, the company’s founder, told a reporter that he no longer had any relationship with the company. Mr. Packouz, who was AEY’s vice president, and Levi Meyer, 25, who was briefly listed as general manager, had left the company, too.

Mr. Meyer offered a statement: “I’m not involved in that mess anymore.”

So it seems pretty clear that Diveroli is a shoo-in for the Hall of Shame. But the question becomes whether he's in competition to be the champ. Is he competition for Erik Prince, Brent Wilkes?

Maybe it's a coincidence. But a little more than a week after the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles created a stir by disbanding his office's public corruption unit, Attorney General Michael Mukasey will be giving a speech in California "to highlight the Department's efforts to investigate and prosecute public corruption" according to a press release.

The speech, sponsored by the Commonwealth Club, will be given at the Intercontinental Hotel Grand Ballroom in San Francisco.

So if last week's move sent a message to California politicians, it seems Mukasey is striving to send the opposite one.

For years, Senate Democrats have blocked the nomination of Steven Bradbury to lead the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. That opposition was solidified with the revelation last year that Bradbury had authored two memos, one of which was "an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency."

And Bradbury didn't do himself any favors last month when he explained to the House Judiciary Committee in detail why waterboarding wasn't torture.

And today Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Policy Center wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee to urge them to oppose Bradbury's nomination. While the groups "rarely take positions on nominations," they write, "we believe that Bradbury’s role in authorizing torture makes this an extraordinary case." You can read the full letter below.

As for Bradbury, he seemed blissfully resigned to his fate in a recent Legal Times interview. The office, as former OLC chief Jack Goldsmith put it -- and Attorney General Michael Mukasey has demonstrated -- has the power to issue "advance pardons" for questionable activity. But Bradbury has effectively run the place since 2004 despite the fact that Senate Dems have repeatedly blocked his nomination (the Department found a nice loophole).

The full letter is below.

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As we noted earlier this month, the intelligence community has been working towards producing a new national intelligence estimate on Iraq, and it's likely to be completed in the next several weeks. It is also, unlike the last several NIEs on Iraq and last year's report on Iran, likely to be kept secret. The report, like the last two NIEs on Iraq, will take stock of the situation there -- both military and political.

That's because Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell thinks it's bad policy to release declassified versions of the reports' key judgments. It's part of his general philosophy that public debate about intelligence issues kills Americans.

So The Washington Post's Walter Pincus reports today that McConnell's deputy said that the NIE process is "getting a makeover by senior intelligence officials to improve its credibility" -- meaning that they want to make sure that no dodgy information (e.g. aluminum tubes) makes it in there.

Which is all well and good, but as Pincus points out, "these changes will be incorporated in the classified NIE on Iraq, but the public probably will not have a chance to judge them." Once the NIE is completed, the National Intelligence Board, of which McConnell is chairman, will decide whether to declassify anything for release. He's already said as a matter of policy that NIEs should be kept quiet. The Iran NIE -- which undercut the administration's public statements about Iran's nuclear capabilities -- was only released out of a fear that its contents would be leaked to the media.

It remains to be seen whether McConnell will have his way. The Hill has so far been quiet on whether there ought to be a declassified version. I put the question to the chairmen of the two intelligence committees -- Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) this morning, and I'll let you know what I hear.

Update: A spokesman for Sen. Rockefeller replies: “Our office won’t have any comment on the report until it is finished.”

After leaving his post as chief prosecutor for the Gitmo tribunals because the process had become "deeply politicized," Col. Morris Davis added fuel to the fire when he said that William Haynes, the Pentagon official who later oversaw the tribunals, had told him that "we can't have acquittals."

Now Davis is taking a further step, The Washington Post reports: "Col. Morris D. Davis said he submitted retirement papers last week, because of fallout from his criticism of the Guantanamo court and because of family concerns."

Well, I guess now the Pentagon can't keep him from testifying before Congress, can it?

The Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday in the case of two American citizens held by the U.S. military in Iraq who are challenging their proposed transfer to the Iraqi legal system. The arguments, which centered on the question of jurisdiction, may intersect with arguments being made in the cases of some Guantanamo detainees. (New York Times)

In 2006 the U.S. accidentally shipped four nuclear-missile detonators to Taiwan. The acknowledgment of this mistake comes on the heels of the Pentagon's admission last fall that a B-52 mistakenly carried armed nuclear missiles across the U.S. The Pentagon failed to detect the missing triggers for more than one year. (McClatchy)

President Bush has asked Congress to pass legislation exempting oil-rich Libya from being sued by victims of state-sponsored terrorism (through the assets Libya has in the United States). Congress has already granted Iraq immunity to such laws at President Bush's request. The administration claims exempting Libya would encourage their support in the current fight against terrorism. (AP)

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Confused about what's going on in Basra? So is pretty much everyone.

For years, Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army was one of the main destabilizing forces in Iraq. But last summer, he agreed to a cease fire, a move that everyone agrees has done a tremendous amount to diminish the violence in recent months. He renewed the cease fire last month.

But Sadr's group has splintered. And Shiite militias, some connected to Sadr and some not, have been mixing it up in the southern city of Basra. The British haded over control of the province to the Iraqi government in December, and things have been downhill since then.

For weeks (or months), Iraqi forces (with U.S. encouragement) have planned an offensive to reclaim Basra from these rogue militias. Besides the violence, there's the problem of corrupt militias having control of the city's valuable ports. And as the Iraqi general in charge of southern Iraq argued, the militias has to be moved out before the elections this fall, or they might forever take hold.

So the offensive was finally launched this week, with Iraqi forces moving in on the ground with British and U.S. support by air. It came as a surprise to no one, even Sadr's people, one of whom tells The Los Angeles Times that Sadr has initially agreed to support the crackdown, provided that it targeted 'outlaws.'"

But now Mahdi representatives say that the offensive is not so "targeted." And Sadr issued a statement two weeks ago permitting the Mahdi Army to fire on U.S. and Iraqi forces in self-defense. So no matter the talk of "outlaws," everyone perceives this as a hit against Sadr.

So now it's chaos, as the operation deepens in Basra and there are clashes in Baghdad -- where the Iraqi forces are also attacking "special groups" (as an American official calls them, meaning Shiite militias with Iranian backing) with American support. Shiite insurgents have responded in part by firing rockets into the Green Zone. There's also a good deal of violence between the rival Shiite militias in Baghdad and elsewhere.

The big question for everyone is whether the cease fire will hold up. Sadr loyalists, the LA Times reports, "accuse his Shiite rivals in the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party of using the Iraqi army and police to round up the cleric's followers ahead of the elections."

The Washington Post reports that Sadr " is under immense pressure from senior loyalists to lift the cease-fire order." The New York Times gives a vivid sense of how close the situation is to tipping:

Many places in Baghdad were tense. At a checkpoint downtown, a policeman’s radio crackled with the news of the sniper shooting of a police officer in a nearby neighborhood. “We’ve heard that Sadr has canceled the cease-fire, is this true?” he asked motorists whose car he was searching....

Saeed Ammar, a government employee, said he was standing near policemen in the Huriya neighborhood on Tuesday morning when he was approached by Mahdi Army members. “They told me not to stand near checkpoints. They said, ‘We are waiting for the word from Moktada Sadr to attack the checkpoints — it may come at any moment.’ “

So far, though, Sadr has only responded by calling for a nationwide civil disobedience campaign. His statement: "we call on all Iraqis to show restraint, throughout Iraq, as a first step. If the government does not respect the demands of the masses, then the second step will be disobedience in Baghdad and the rest of the provinces." The cease fire is still in effect.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has gone down to Basra to monitor the campaign and has issued an ultimatum for the militia members to lay down their arms.

As the Post observes it's an awkward time for the biggest test yet of the preparedness of the Iraqi forces: "It was unclear why U.S. forces would take part in a broad armed challenge to Sadr and his thousands-strong militia on the eve of Petraeus's assessment, which the Bush administration has said would greatly influence its decision on whether to draw down troop levels."

And White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, as always, has put the brightest face possible on things: "I would characterize it as a bold decision — precisely what the critics have asked to see in Iraq, more movement by the Iraqi Security Forces."

So is the Justice Department investigating the breach of Barack Obama's (and Hillary Clinton's and John McCain's) passport files or not? CNN quotes a Department spokesman as saying that prosecutors have "met with officials from the State Department Inspector General's office on this matter, and are coordinating with the Office of Inspector General on its investigative efforts."

But at this point, the Department of Justice can't be said to be actually investigating, just sort of keeping stock of things, apparently. "A knowledgeable official" tells CNN that it's too much to call this a "joint investigation" -- which is the same stance that the State Department had on Friday.

Last time we checked in on Hans von Spakovsky, the vote suppression guru was doggedly making the case for voter ID laws.

Now Angelenos have a chance to sample his wisdom. On April 2nd, Spakovsky will be speaking to the Los Angeles chapter of the Federalist Society. The title of the lecture is "Litigating Elections: the Campaign Process in 2008" -- characteristic of a man who's shown a genius for using the law to affect elections.

While Spakovsky is spreading the gospel, the White House and Republicans have still refused to back down from his nomination to the Federal Election Commission. The Dems, meanwhile, refuse to allow him to be slipped through with the other FEC nominees. Which is why the FEC remains unable to act.

Thanks to TPM Reader KA for the tip.

There's been a bit of a shuffle lately at Freedom's Watch, the billionaire backed conservative attack group.

Early this month, Bradley Blakeman, a former Bush White House official who'd been the group's president, left the group under something of a cloud. Unnamed conservatives grumbled that the group had not "figured out its role in the conservative/Republican universe," and there were whispers that some had been unhappy with his leadership.

But today the group announced that Carl Forti will serve as the groups' Executive Vice President and "will lead the group’s 2008 issue advocacy campaign." That means, presumably, that Forti will have some say of where that $200-250 million goes.

Forti comes off of a stint as Mitt Romney's political director -- and before that, the National Republican Campaign Committee's spokesman. Forti left the NRCC, where he was for more than seven years, after the 2006 election -- of which he confidently said earlier that year, "Incumbents don't get beat because there's a bad national environment" (d'oh).

When asked whether the group had found a replacement for Blakeman, Freedom's Watch spokesman Jake Suski said that was an "ongoing transition process." So in other words, no.

From The Boston Globe:

When the American team arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2003 to repair the Qarmat Ali water injection plant, supervisors told them the orange, sand-like substance strewn around the looted facility was just a "mild irritant," workers recall....

But the chemical turned out to be sodium dichromate, a substance so dangerous that even limited exposure greatly increases the risk of cancer. Soon, many of the 22 Americans and 100-plus Iraqis began to complain of nosebleeds, ulcers, and shortness of breath....

Now, nine Americans are accusing KBR, then a subsidiary of the oil conglomerate Halliburton, of knowingly exposing them to the deadly substance and failing to provide them with the protective equipment needed to keep them safe.

But the workers, like all employees injured in Iraq, face an uphill struggle in their quest for damages. Under a World War II-era federal workers compensation law, employers are generally protected from employee lawsuits, except in rare cases in which it can be proven that the company intentionally harmed its employees or committed outright fraud.

KBR is citing the law, called the Defense Base Act, as grounds to reject the workers' request for damages.

But the company's own actions have undermined its case: To avoid payroll taxes for its American employees, KBR hired the workers through two subsidiaries registered in the Cayman Islands, part of a strategy that has allowed KBR to dodge hundreds of millions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare taxes.

That gives the workers' lawyer, Mike Doyle of Houston, a chance to argue to an arbitration board that KBR is not an employer protected by federal law, but a third-party that can be sued.

The whole horrid story is worth a read.

We knew that the House's lawsuit against White House officials would take awhile. And it turns out that it'll be June, at the earliest, before a judge makes his first decision in the House's suit against Harriet Miers and White House chief of staff Josh Bolten.

That relatively rapid pace (for the courts, at least) is the result of the House pushing for quicker resolution of some of the White House's more expansive claims of executive privilege. The court will decide first whether administration lawyers are right when they say that Miers didn't even need to show up in response to the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena and that both Bolten and Miers didn't even need to indicate what sort of documents the White House were claiming privilege for. Thornier issues (e.g. whether certain conversations that do not involve the president are covered by executive privilege, etc.) would be dealt with later. The House has sought this speedier resolution with the hope that it would mean they'd actually get to hear from Miers and see some documents from Bolten before the close of the Bush administration.

Last Friday, the judge set a schedule for both sides to submit motions and set a hearing for June 23rd when the House's general counsel and Justice Department lawyers will argue before the judge. But whichever way the judge eventually rules, the decision would likely be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court, meaning that regardless of the House's desire for a speedy resolution, the case is bound to spend a long time in the courts before Congressional investigators see any of its fruits.

Five years into Mr. Bush's war and long after the declaration of "mission accomplished," the U.S. death toll in Iraq has reached 4,000. More than 97 percent of these losses occurred after that declaration. Though the administration continues to ban images of coffins coming home, The New York Times and Huffington Post provide us with the faces of the dead. (Think Progress, New York Times, Huffington Post)

"Curveball," the Iraqi defector whose stories - many of which turned out to be false - were used by the U.S. to make the case for invading Iraq, told Der Spiegel recently that "he is not to blame for the war and that he never said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction." Curveball's accounts of Iraq's weapons program were used by then Secretary of State Collin Powell in his speech to the United Nations in February 2003. (ABC)

The recent revelations that employees of private companies with government contracts improperly accessed the passport files of both Barack Obama and John McCain is adding to concerns that the federal government is relying too much on private contractors to carry out its work. The questions follow recent controversies over the use of private military contractors, such as Blackwater, in Iraq. (AP)

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When Gen. David Petraeus made his big trip to Congress last September, he came armed with a full deck of slides. But none of them captured the U.S. strategy in Iraq quite like this one:

In it, you can see a neat illustration of how we’re going to eventually get out of Iraq. By July, as you can see above, the U.S. force level will return to the approximate size it was preceding the surge. After that, well... the question marks begin.

According to the chart, the date for the subsequent drawdown was to be determined this month (the "decision point"). But it won't be, The Washington Post and New York Times report this morning.

When Petraeus returns to Congress in a couple weeks for his next big briefing, he will give a good idea of how many U.S. troops will remain in Iraq as of July. But beyond that, nothing. From the Times:

During the briefing to the president, General Petraeus laid out a number of potential options, the officials said, but avoided using the term “pause.” That word has gained traction here in Washington over recent weeks to describe the plateau in troop levels that is widely expected to last through the fall elections and perhaps beyond.

Instead, he described the weeks after the departure of the extra brigades ordered to Iraq in January 2007 as a period of “consolidation and evaluation,” a phrase first used publicly by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates during a visit to Iraq in February.

The officials said that Mr. Bush and General Petraeus, recognizing public and Congressional wariness about the toll of the war, would publicly hold out the possibly of withdrawing more troops, but only if conditions allowed it. Mr. Bush, in particular, is eager to end his presidency with the appearance that things are getting better in Iraq.

The Times concludes that "it now appears likely that any decision on major reductions in American troops from Iraq will be left to the next president." A state of affairs that should surprise no one, as the administration has ably kicked the can down the road with promises of dramatic improvement just six months away. Perhaps the only happy development from all this is that the administration has decided to chuck the farcical six month reviews and instead concentrate on a smaller review every month by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military’s Central Command, where, away from the distraction of noisy public debate, the military can privately ascertain whether it's safe to draw down troops in the last months of Bush's presidency.

4,000 dead U.S. soldiers and five years later, Frontline takes stock in a two part, four and half hour series. The first part airs tonight, so check it out.

Well, the short answer seems to be no. But there's still plenty curious about Roger Stone's cameo role in Eliot Spitzer's downfall.

The Miami Herald reported on Friday that Stone, a veteran Republican operative with a deep bag of tricks, had sent a letter via his lawyer to the FBI in November of last year informing them that he'd learned that Spitzer frequented prostitutes. The letter stated:

"The governor has paid literally tens of thousands of dollars for these services. It is Mr. Stone's understanding that the governor paid not with credit cards or cash but through some pre-arranged transfer... It is also my client's understanding from the same source that Gov. Spitzer did not remove his mid-calf length black socks during the sex act."

Speaking to the Herald, Stone was a bit more clear about how he came to learn this: "a high-end call girl at an adult-themed club called Miami Velvet told him she was disappointed to have missed a call to entertain Spitzer." Why was Stone -- no stranger to sex scandals -- at the Miami Velvet Swingers Club (the full name, according to the website)? Well, conducting opposition research, presumably.

But back to the letter. As our timeline makes clear, the feds began their investigation into the Emperor Club's ring in October of last year, approximately a month before Stone sent his letter to the FBI.

So was the FBI asking Stone for information about Spitzer? That's not clear. According to Stone's lawyer Robert Buschel, the FBI had sought to speak to Stone, but "did not specify why they wanted to interview Mr. Stone or the subject matter." Stone's lawyers, understandably, advised Stone against speaking to the FBI on such ambiguous terms. But he apparently did reply by letter with that unsolicited tip about Spitzer's activities.

In sum, it's unclear at this juncture whether the FBI's request had anything to do the Spitzer investigation. It's also unclear whether the FBI received Stone's letter or passed it on to the agents investigating Spitzer and the Emperor's Club. But given the facts reported about how the investigation developed, it's at least clear that Stone's tip came after the investigation was well under way.

Anybody who's watched Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for any period of time won't be surprised at his reaction to today's indictment.