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Listen Up, Mr. President

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Fred Kaplan

Two myths have sprung up around the House and Senate bills that require President Bush to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq. One is that he would have to pull out all the troops. The other is that, if Bush vetoes the final bill (as he is nearly certain to do), the war—and all other military activities—would grind to a halt, leaving the troops in the lurch, bereft of basic ammo and supplies.

Both myths are false, the product of spin.

The Pentagon has several ways to reroute money if a veto locks the emergency-spending bill in temporary limbo while Congress goes on Easter recess. And both chambers’ bills leave leeway for quite a lot of U.S. troops to stay in Iraq indefinitely—though, true, there would be fewer than there are now, and they would perform less-ambitious missions.

Beyond this, the House version of the bill offers a political-military strategy toward Iraq that the White House might do well to emulate—as a general approach, if not in all its details.

First, let’s deal with the consequences of a veto. The congressional demands for a troop withdrawal are merely sections of the much larger bill to provide $96 billion in emergency spending for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A veto would kill not only the language on withdrawal but also the $96 billion.

Administration officials invoke the time when President Bill Clinton vetoed the Republican Congress’ budget and House Speaker Newt Gingrich walked away, forcing the federal government to shut down—a series of events that politically tarnished the Republicans in the long run. Officials warn that the same thing will happen to the congressional Democrats if they force Bush to shut down the war.

That’s not going to happen. A story in today’s edition of the Hill outlines several ways the Pentagon could still get funds to the troops. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates could “reprogram” money from one account to another. He could shift “unobligated balances” from the operations and maintenance accounts. If worst comes to worst, he could invoke the Civil War-era Feed and Forage Act, which allows him to allocate money for the troops’ basic provisions without congressional approval.

Finally, it seems the Pentagon’s war chest won’t go bare until the beginning of June. If Bush vetoes the emergency-spending bill and Congress goes on recess till mid-April, it will be an administrative hassle but not a disaster.

But more to the point, what’s in these bills? Exactly what would they force Bush to do?

The Senate bill does take out the cleaver. No later than 120 days after the bill’s enactment, the president “shall commence the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq,” with “the goal of redeploying” all combat troops by March 31, 2008.

Even so, there are some loopholes. First, there are those two words I’ve italicized above: The March 2008 deadline is put forth as not the requirement but rather “the goal.”

Second, the bill allows “a limited number” of combat forces to stay “that are essential for the following purposes: (A) Protecting United States and coalition personnel and infrastructure. (B) Training and equipping Iraqi forces. (C) Conducting targeted counter-terrorism operations.”

Force-protection, infrastructure, training, counterterrorism—these missions could justify keeping at least 50,000 American troops in Iraq for a long, long time.

The clear intent of this provision—and this is true in the House bill as well—is not so much to end the Iraq war but to return to the course that U.S. commanders were taking late last year, before Bush ordered the “surge” in force levels and shifted to a more active counterinsurgency plan.

Continue…

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US rejects Iran captives exchange

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

US officials have ruled out a deal to exchange 15 Royal Navy personnel captured in the Gulf for five Iranians seized by American forces in Iraq. State department spokesman Sean McCormack rejected suggestions that a swap could be made.

The five, believed to be members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, were seized in January in the Iraqi city of Irbil.

Britain denies Iran’s claims that the UK crew was in its waters when seized on 23 March.

The five Iranians were captured in a raid along with equipment which the Americans say shows clear Iranian links to networks supplying Iraqi insurgents with technology and weapons.

US officials have condemned Iran’s actions and publicly supported the UK.

Mr McCormack said: “The international community is not going to stand for the Iranian government trying to use this issue to distract the rest of the world from the situation in which Iran finds itself vis-a-vis its nuclear programme.”

Meanwhile, Iran’s ambassador to Russia has said the UK captives could face trial for violating international law.

“It is possible that the British soldiers who entered into Iranian waters will go on trial for taking this illegal action,” Gholamreza Ansari told Russian television channel Vesti-24, according to Iran’s IRNA news agency.

Earlier, Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned Iran for “parading” the UK crew on television in a way which would only “enhance people’s sense of disgust”.

In what appeared to be an edited broadcast on an Iranian channel, sailor Nathan Thomas Summers said: “I would like to apologise for entering your waters without permission.”

‘Sacrificed’

He was shown alongside two colleagues, including Leading Seaman Faye Turney, 26, from Shropshire, who was broadcast apologising to Iran earlier in the week.

A third letter, allegedly from LS Turney, was released on Friday in which she said she had been “sacrificed” to UK and US government policy.

The BBC has been able to confirm the names of six of the 15 captured sailors and marines.

Along with LS Turney and Nathan Summers, who is from Cornwall, they are Paul Barton from Southport, Danny Masterton from Ayrshire, Joe Tindall from south London and Adam Sperry from Leicester.

European Union foreign ministers, meeting in Bremen, Germany, called for “the immediate and unconditional release” of the sailors and expressed “unconditional support” for Britain’s position.

UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett described the latest footage as “quite appalling” and “blatant propaganda”.

She also disclosed there was nothing in a formal letter from the Iranians to the UK that suggested they were looking for a solution to “this difficult situation”.

‘Not harmed’

In the latest video, Nathan Summers says: “Since we’ve been arrested in Iran our treatment has been very friendly.

“We have not been harmed at all. They’ve looked after us really well.

“The food they’ve been serving us is good and I am grateful that no harm has come to us.

“I would just like to apologise for entering your waters without permission. And that happened back in 2004, and the government promised that it wouldn’t happen again.”

BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood said last year US President Bush gave a secret order that Iranian agents believed working in Iraq should be captured or killed because of the coalition’s belief that Iran was “fermenting trouble in Iraq”.

He said it meant there was a “compelling theory” that the UK sailors were captured as a result of an order “from the highest levels of Iranian government” which would make it a “very different game” for the Foreign Office to sort out.

Earlier, the UN Security Council called on Tehran to allow the UK access to the personnel and urges an “early resolution”, including release of the crew, but stopped short of “deploring” Iran’s action, as requested by the UK.

The Britons, based on HMS Cornwall, were seized by Revolutionary Guards as they returned from searching a vessel in the northern Gulf.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6512927.stm

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Terror suspect alleges torture for confession

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Lolita C. Baldor

A suspected Saudi terrorist testified at a military hearing that he was tortured into confessing he was involved in the bombing of the USS Cole, according to a Pentagon transcript released yesterday.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national of Yemeni descent, said he made up stories that tied him to the 2000 Cole attack, which killed 17 US sailors and nearly succeeded in sinking the $1 billion destroyer in Yemen’s Aden Harbor .

“From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me. It happened during interviews. One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way,” Nashiri said, according to the transcript. “I just said those things to make the people happy. They were very happy when I told them those things.”

Portions of the 36-page hearing transcript were redacted, and the transcript does not include any details of the torture Nashiri said took place over five years. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that any allegations of torture would be investigated and that sections were blacked out of the transcript because of national security reasons.

Nashiri is one of 14 so-called high-value detainees who were moved to the base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September from secret CIA prisons abroad. The military is conducting hearings for the 14 to determine whether they are “enemy combatants” who can be held indefinitely and prosecuted for war crimes.

Human rights groups have argued for years that the CIA’s detention and interrogation techniques amount to torture. The International Committee of the Red Cross has interviewed the 14 detainees.

In a confidential report that has not been publicly distributed, the Red Cross said the 14 prisoners described highly abusive interrogation methods, especially when techniques such as sleep deprivation and forced standing were used in combination. None of the detainees’ accounts has been verified.

US officials long have said the CIA program is for the most dangerous detainees, and the CIA says its officers do not torture.

According to US intelligence, Nashiri is the suspected mastermind of the Cole bombing, and was Al Qaeda’s operations chief in the Arabian Peninsula until he was caught in 2002. Nashiri, 41, was allegedly tasked by Osama bin Laden to attack the Cole.

In the transcript, Nashiri says he met with bin Laden many times and received as much as a half million dollars from the terror leader. The money, he said, was for “personal expenses,” including for marriage and business deals.

Nashiri said he told interrogators that he spent some of the money on the explosives used to bomb the Cole, but in reality he said he gave the explosives to friends to help dig wells. He acknowledged that he confessed to be involved in several other terror plots in order to get the torture to stop — including the 2002 bombing of the French oil tanker Limburg, plans to bomb American ships in the Gulf, a plan to hijack a plane and crash it into a ship, and claims that bin Laden had a nuclear bomb.

In one instance, he said, he took money to buy a boat and develop a fishing business, and bin Laden later told him it could be used for a bombing. Nashiri said he ended the project and was not involved when bin Laden later used it “as a military tool.”

In the Limburg attack, suicide bombers rammed an explosive-laden boat into the tanker, killing a Bulgarian crew member and spilling 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.

Speaking through a translator, Nashiri said he knew many of the people involved in attacks, including on the Cole, but said he is not a member of Al Qaeda . Asked whether he is an enemy combatant, Nashiri said he does not consider Americans his enemies.

But, he said, “Do you call anybody who ask you to leave from the Gulf as an enemy combatant? . . . Everybody in the world is telling you to leave.” He said he is one of those people who wants the United States to leave the Gulf.

In a hearing at Guantanamo Bay on March 20, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, a Malaysian also known as Lillie, declined to attend. But in a written statement, he denied allegations against him, principally that he helped transfer funds for the 2003 bombing at a Jakarta hotel that killed 12.

“It is true I facilitated the movement of money . . . but I did not know what it was going to be used for,” he said.

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UK writes to Iran over troops

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Al Jazeera and agencies

Britain has responded by diplomatic note to Iran’s capture of 15 British naval personnel last week in the Gulf, Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, has said.

“We had a diplomatic note and we have made our response,” she said on the sidelines of an EU meeting in Bremen, Germany, on Saturday.

“I think everyone regrets that this position has arisen. What we want is a way out of it, we want it peacefully and we want it as soon as possible,” Beckett said.

“We would like to be told where our personnel are, we would like to be given access to them, but we want it resolved,” she added.

Apology demanded

Also on Saturday, Iran’s president said the British governnment was not following “the legal and logical way” over the case.

“After the arrest of these people, the British government, instead of apologising and expressing regret, over the action taken, started to claim that we are in their debt and shouted in different international councils,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the state radio report.

“But this is not the legal and logical way for this issue.”

A diplomatic note from Iran to Britain released on Friday condemned the “illegal act” by British naval staff and called on the UK to accept responsibilty for the standoff.

Also on Friday, Iranian television broadcast footage of three of the British naval personnel in which one of them apologised for entering Iranian waters without permission.

Britain has insisted that the naval personnel were in Iraqi waters when they were detained.

Trial denied

Iran’s ambassador to Moscow has meanwhile denied saying that the British naval personnel held by Iran may face trial for illegally entering Iranian waters.

Gholam Reza Ansari said a Russian television station had mistranslated his remarks.

“The network has made a mistake in translating the comments about detained British personnel and has reported the possibility of their trial,” he told the Iranian state news agency IRNA.

Ansari was earlier quoted by IRNA as telling Russian television channel Vesti-24: “It is possible that the British soldiers who entered into Iranian waters will go on trial.”

“The legal phase concerning these British soldiers has started and if charges against them are proven, they will be punished,” he said.

Mediation offer

Terry White, a former British hostage who was held captive for almost five years in Lebanon from 1987 to 1991, has offered to mediate in resolving the crisis.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, White expressed his readiness to visit Iran to persuade Tehran free the seized personnel.

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Giuliani Testified He Was Briefed on Kerik in ’00

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik’s relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik’s appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records.

Mr. Giuliani, testifying last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik, said he had no memory of the briefing, but he did not dispute that it had taken place, according to a transcript of his testimony.

Mr. Giuliani’s testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was probably before him in the summer of 2000 as he was debating Mr. Kerik’s appointment as the city’s top law enforcement officer. Mr. Giuliani had previously said that he had never been told of Mr. Kerik’s entanglement with the company before promoting him to the police job or later supporting his failed bid to be the nation’s homeland security secretary.

In his testimony, given in April 2006, Mr. Giuliani indicated that he must have simply forgotten that he had been briefed on one or more occasions as part of the background investigation of Mr. Kerik before his appointment to the police post.

He said he learned only in late 2004 that the briefing or briefings had occurred, after the city’s investigation commissioner reviewed his own records from 2000. To this day, Mr. Giuliani testified, he has no specific recollection of any briefing or the details of what he was told. But he said he felt comforted because the chief investigator had cleared Mr. Kerik to be promoted.

“He testified fully and cooperatively,” a statement from Mr. Giuliani’s consulting firm said of the former mayor’s grand jury appearance. The statement added: “Mayor Giuliani has admitted it was a mistake to recommend Bernie Kerik for D.H.S. and he has assumed responsibility for it.”

Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty last summer to improperly allowing the company, Interstate Industrial Corporation, or its subsidiaries, to do $165,000 worth of free renovations on his Bronx apartment in late 1999 and 2000. The company has denied paying for the work, and has disputed any association with organized crime. But the two brothers who run it have been indicted in the Bronx on charges they lied under oath about their dealings with Mr. Kerik.

There is no evidence that Mr. Giuliani knew about the apartment renovation before promoting Mr. Kerik to police commissioner. But the top investigator who briefed Mr. Giuliani in 2000, the transcript shows, was aware that Mr. Kerik’s brother and a close friend had been hired by an affiliate of the company, which for years had been struggling to secure a city license.

For Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president and who has done well in early polls, his history with Mr. Kerik looms as a likely issue in the campaign. His own aides have anticipated that questions are likely to arise about Mr. Giuliani’s judgment in, among other things, promoting Mr. Kerik for one of the country’s most important national security posts.

Now, Mr. Giuliani, whose private company provides background checks for companies as part of its services, may have to explain his response to the information that was provided to him in 2000.

His company’s statement yesterday said that Mr. Giuliani was not concerned that issues surrounding Mr. Kerik would become a liability to his presidential campaign.

The transcript of Mr. Giuliani’s testimony was not given to The New York Times by any rival campaign.

In his testimony, Mr. Giuliani suggests he might have been presented with only limited information about Mr. Kerik’s issues. And he said the city investigators who did the background check on Mr. Kerik ultimately cleared him to be hired as police commissioner.

Mr. Giuliani testified that the background investigators’ approval might explain why he, and aides who were involved, could not recollect any briefing, according to the 101-page transcript of his April 20, 2006, testimony.

“We may have filed it away somewhere that it wasn’t as significant,” Mr. Giuliani testified. Mr. Giuliani said Edward J. Kuriansky, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Investigation, had also forgotten about the briefings until he checked his records days after Mr. Kerik’s withdrawal from consideration as homeland security secretary in late 2004.

Mr. Kuriansky did not return phone calls seeking his account of what he remembered telling Mr. Giuliani.

According to the grand jury transcript, a prosecutor for the Bronx district attorney’s office told Mr. Giuliani that Mr. Kuriansky and his investigators had compiled a considerable body of knowledge about Mr. Kerik’s relationship with the company before his August 2000 appointment as police commissioner.

Mr. Kerik, who was then the city’s commissioner of correction, had himself come forward months earlier to tell the investigators that the company had recently given jobs to his brother, Donald, as well as the best man from his wedding, Lawrence Ray, and that he himself had interceded on the company’s behalf as it sought a city license, the prosecutor told Mr. Giuliani.

Mr. Kerik even told the investigators that his friend Mr. Ray had recently been indicted on federal criminal charges, along with Edward Garafola, a reputed Gambino soldier, the brother-in-law of Salvatore Gravano, the former underboss known as Sammy the Bull.

An Interstate affiliate was at that time seeking a license to operate a waste transfer station on Staten Island. City officials refused to license the transfer station because of the organized crime allegations, which stemmed in part from the fact that the transfer station was bought in 1996 from two organized crime figures.

Interstate is a construction company based in New Jersey that undertakes large public and private projects in the metropolitan area.

The company has long denied the accusation of mob ties, and New Jersey regulators issued a license to the company in 2004, allowing it to do construction work on Atlantic City casinos, after a lengthy review of the same material. That license was suspended after the owners were charged with perjury last summer.

By 2000, Mr. Kerik had known or worked for Mr. Giuliani for close to a decade. Mr. Kerik first came to know Mr. Giuliani when he provided security during his second mayoral campaign. Mr. Giuliani later became godfather to two of Mr. Kerik’s children and promoted him to lead the Correction Department. Mr. Kerik was one of two candidates Mr. Giuliani seriously considered to succeed Howard Safir as police commissioner as Mr. Giuliani neared the final year of his administration.

Mr. Kerik served in that post for 16 months, and was at Mr. Giuliani’s side on the morning of Sept. 11 when the World Trade Center collapsed.

In their questioning of Mr. Giuliani last April, Bronx prosecutors sought repeatedly to determine how much the mayor remembered being told about Mr. Kerik’s problems, and what, if anything, he had done about the information.

Throughout his questioning, Mr. Giuliani said he remembered close to nothing about what he had been told about the broader background investigation of Mr. Kerik or what he had done after hearing it. He testified that he remembered being told something about Mr. Kerik’s experience as a security consultant in Saudi Arabia, but little else.

He testified, as well, that he could not remember if he had ever discussed the issues with Mr. Kerik directly.

At one point, a senior Bronx prosecutor, Stephen R. Bookin, asked Mr. Giuliani, “As you sit here today, your testimony is, and correct me if I am wrong, that you don’t recall ever being told that a close friend of your correction commissioner had been indicted in a federal case?”

Mr. Giuliani responded: “I don’t recall that until 2004. I can’t tell you that it wasn’t, but I don’t — I don’t — I don’t remember.”

The prosecutor also explored whether Mr. Giuliani would find it odd that the city’s top investigator, with whom he met almost daily, would not have fully shared what appeared to be rather alarming information with him.

“Do you know of any reason why Mr. Kuriansky, who met with you every day that you were in town, part of your core group as you put it, would not have briefed you on these facts?” the prosecutors asked.

Mr. Giuliani, in the end, replied that the facts about Mr. Kerik might not have been presented to him in as much detail and with as much emphasis back in 2000.

The prosecutor then asked Mr. Giuliani whether, if the information had been presented to him with as much emphasis, he would have appointed Mr. Kerik police commissioner.

“If he told it to me the way you described it to me, no,” Mr. Giuliani replied. “If he had told it to me in a different way because, maybe he didn’t know all of the facts, or had come to a different conclusion about the facts, then maybe I would have — I can’t tell you that.”

Mr. Giuliani was a key backer of Mr. Kerik when President Bush nominated him to be homeland security secretary in December 2004. Mr. Kerik withdrew his name a week later, citing possible tax and immigration problems involving his family’s nanny.

Several newspapers at the time were already pursuing stories about his relationship with Interstate, which were published in the succeeding days. It is unclear to what extent Mr. Kerik’s relationship with the company was made clear to the White House before his nomination.

But Mr. Giuliani testified that Mr. Kerik had assured him that he had briefed presidential aides about the matter.

Mr. Kerik also assured him, Mr. Giuliani testified, that there was no reason for concern when questions later arose as to whether Interstate had paid for the renovations to his apartment.

“He told me that Interstate didn’t do the work, that another company had done it legitimately, that he had the checks to show he paid for it,” Mr. Giuliani said.

Mr. Giuliani testified that he took Mr. Kerik’s word for it and did not ask to see the canceled checks.

Last year, when Mr. Kerik admitted in court that the renovations had actually been largely underwritten by Interstate or its subsidiaries, Mr. Giuliani released a statement that displayed no irritation at having been misled.

“Bernard Kerik has acknowledged his violations,” the statement said, “but this should be evaluated in light of his service to the United States of America and the city of New York.”

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Obama: Bush not respecting Constitution

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday accused President Bush of failing to respect the Constitution amid the uproar over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.The Illinois senator also took a swipe at embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Obama has joined several other Democrats in calling for Gonzales to resign.

“I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president I actually respect the Constitution,” Obama told an audience at a campaign fundraiser. “I believe in an attorney general who is actually the people’s lawyer, not the president’s lawyer.”

Obama’s remarks drew one of the most enthusiastic responses in a speech often interrupted by applause.

Gonzales acknowledged Friday there is confusion about his role in firing the eight U.S. attorneys last fall. His former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, told Congress Thursday that prosecutors put on a list to be fired got there in part because they were not deemed “loyal Bushies.”

During his stop in Florida, Obama held a brief meeting with Democratic lawmakers and then spoke for about three minutes to more than 100 college students who held an impromptu rally outside an IMAX theater where he held his fundraiser.

“I just hope that everyone here has that same sense of urgency that I do,” Obama told the students. “I hope the young people in particular use this campaign as a vehicle to get involved and engaged. This is one of those rare moments where we could change history, and those moments don’t come that often. So I hope that all of you take advantage of it.” POLITICS

Inside the fundraiser, which was a sellout at 640 tickets and raised about $150,000, people packed a room and balcony.

Obama told the group that he can unite the country, and a united country will bring change.

“But there are going to be times when I’m tired, there are going to be times when I’m weary, there are going to be times when I make mistakes, but none of that matters if we have millions of voices who are coming together insisting on a new America,” he said.

At the Capitol, Obama signed books for a handful of lawmakers before inching his way through a packed room.

“One of the things that I’ve come to realize is how much I learn in the state Legislature, because there’s very few jobs that give you a better sense of the state and the people in it _ the struggles they’re going through every day,” Obama said. “It was that experience in the Legislature that convinced me that politics can be a noble calling.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17876280/

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Users offered virus disguised as IE7

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Security researchers have warned of a new virus disguised as a download of Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2.
They said the virus was unusual for a couple of reasons: the email includes a convincing graphic that looks like it could really be from Microsoft, and the virus is delivered when recipients click on a link rather than in an attachment, which makes it harder to stop it from reaching in-boxes.

“The idea of sending a link seems to be a trend among attackers; it’s still fairly new and it works much better than sending a file,” said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure.

The e-mails carry the subject line “Internet Explorer 7 Downloads” and appear to come from admin@microsoft.com. They include a blue, Microsoft-style graphic offering a download of IE 7 beta 2. Clicking the graphic will download an executable file called IE 7.exe.

The file is actually a new virus called Virus.Win32.Grum.A, and security experts are still analysing it to see what it does. Sophos said it can spread by e-mailing itself to contacts in a user’s address book. The virus tampers with registry files to ensure it gets installed, and it tries to download additional files from the Internet, said Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant for Sophos.

Other specifics were unknown yet, but such viruses often install a keystroke logger to steal personal information, and establish a network of infected computers to launch a denial of service attack, Cluley said.

“We don’t know anything yet about where it is coming from,” Hypponen said. “It’s fairly well made and hard to analyse with normal tools.”

F-Secure had received many reports of the e-mail but few submissions of the virus itself, indicating that damage so far is limited. Cluely agreed: “I wouldn’t classify this as one of the biggest viruses of the year, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a threat” he said.

Detection of Win32.Grum by anti-virus programs was “mediocre” by last evening, according to Sunbelt Software, and some big vendors were still not picking it up Friday morning, Hypponen said.

F-Secure and Sophos are blocking the virus and all major vendors are likely to do so soon, he said. Some email filtering systems were also not blocking the virus by this golmorning.

The virus is being hosted on several servers around the world, which will increase the time it takes to identify and clean them all. They appear to be web servers that have been hacked, Hypponen said. The SANS Internet Storm Center asked administrators to check their logs to make sure they are not hosting the file.

The virus affects only Windows users. “Microsoft is aware of this issue and is currently investigating this matter, including customer impact,” a spokeswoman said.

The final version of IE 7 was released last October, so Microsoft is unlikely to be advertising a beta of the product. Users can download a real version of the software at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer home page.

Source

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CCTV On School Buses

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Pam Caulfield and Michael Meaney

Pupils could be under increased surveillance if a proposed school transport shake-up goes ahead.

Leicestershire County Council is looking at the idea of more CCTV on school buses, as part of a review of transport spending. The Council is consulting on proposals to reduce the £9 million per year it currently spends on home to school and college transport - £7 million of which comes from Council Tax.

If the proposals are approved it could include portable CCTV sets, which can be switched to buses on different routes.

Ivan Ould, the Cabinet’s member for Children and Young People’s Services, said: “Although we don’t have a major problem with misbehaviour on school buses, some parents and pupils have expressed concern about it.“These proposals will help to tackle the issue and may well help to encourage more pupils to use school transport.

“I hope that as many Leicestershire residents as possible express their views on these proposals.”

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Police sought terror suspect before plot

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Caroline Gammell

Police were hunting one of the alleged July 21 terrorists six months before he tried to detonate explosives on London’s transport network, a court heard yesterday.

Muktar Said Ibrahim, 29, was sent two letters by the police in February 2005 saying they were seeking his arrest for refusing to surrender bail.

The alleged bus bomber had been charged under the Public Order Act for threatening or abusive behaviour after a run-in with police in October 2004.

He and two others had been distributing Islamic material outside Debenhams on Oxford Street, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

Ibrahim was due to appear before magistrates in December but did not turn up because he had flown to Pakistan, the jury was told.

In February, the Metropolitan police wrote him two letters, urging him to hand himself in.

The first, dated February 14 2005, said Ibrahim was being sought for arrest because he had not surrendered bail.

The letter added: “Come to us before we come to you.”

A second identical letter was sent on February 28. Both were addressed to his flat in Farleigh Road, Stoke Newington, north London. Ibrahim did not get back to the UK until March.

But junior prosecution counsel Max Hill told the jury that on his return from Pakistan Ibrahim spent most of his time at the house of co-defendant Yassin Omar.

The court heard the letters were found in the bins at Omar’s flat in Curtis House, New Southgate, north London - site of the alleged “bomb factory”.

Ibrahim and Omar, 26, are among six defendants accused of carrying out an extremist Muslim plot.

Mr Hill accused Ibrahim of intentionally staying away from Farleigh Road because “you knew the police were on to you.”

He said Ibrahim was in the midst of putting together his plot to detonate a number of rucksack devices across the capital.

“You did not return to Farleigh Road because to do so would be to run the risk that you would be arrested and not be able to carry out the plan you hatched.”

“No,” Ibrahim replied.

The defendant insisted he contacted the police once he received the letters to arrange a court date, but never heard back.

Mr Hill said: “On your return to the UK you settled on nothing less than a mission which would lead you and the others to martyrdom.”

“No, that’s not true at all,” he said.

“In order for you to carry out your mission you had to make sure that the authorities did not catch you at Farleigh Road,” said Mr Hill.

“No, that’s not true because I was claiming housing benefit,” the defendant replied.

The jury heard details of Ibrahim’s trip to Pakistan at the end of 2004.

Armed with £2,000, he flew to Islamabad with two other men on December 11, but all three were stopped en route by police at London’s Heathrow airport.

The jury has heard how Ibrahim told the officers they were going to a wedding and then on holiday and did not expect to be longer than 20 days.

When searched, one of his companions was found carrying £2,200 in cash, a military first aid kit in camouflage packaging and part of a first aid manual on how to treat ballistic injuries.

When asked about the contents, Ibrahim said: “This kind of stuff comes in handy when you are on holiday.”

Mr Hill replied: “Really? You are in need of a manual telling you how to treat ballistic injuries when you are going to get married?”

Before going, Ibrahim and the two men had a leaving party at the defendant’s flat in Farleigh Road.

The barrister said the gathering was “more to do with a jihadi sending off party.

“It was a collection of like-minded extremist individuals dressed in Muslim clothing, sporting long beards who came to wish you and your two companions well in your determined trip of jihad.”

“No,” Ibrahim insisted.

Mr Hill said Ibrahim was not going to Pakistan for a wedding or a holiday but wanted to stay and fight.

“Your intention was not to return (to this country) but to become a jihadi and die in the attempt.”

“That’s not true,” the defendant replied.

Ibrahim and Omar are accused alongside Hussain Osman, 28, of no fixed address, Ramzi Mohammed, 25, of North Kensington, west London, Adel Yahya, 24, of High Road, Tottenham, north London and Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 33, of no fixed address.

All six deny conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life.

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UK headed for prison meltdown

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Duncan Campbell and Alan Travis

The former head of the prison service has warned that up to 100,000 people could be in jail by the end of the decade unless drastic and immediate action is taken by the government.The prediction from Martin Narey came as the prison population in England and Wales reached an all-time high yesterday of more than 80,300, with only four spare places left in emergency police cells anywhere in the country. The crisis meant prison service officials were, for the first time, forced to turn to cells in magistrates courts with hard benches, no beds and no toilets. The move had near disastrous consequences. Securicor officers were asked to volunteer to look after four prisoners held overnight at a magistrates court in north London. One of the prisoners made a suicide attempt which was only prevented at the last minute.Speaking to the Guardian, Mr Narey warned that Britain is heading towards US levels of imprisonment.

“I wouldn’t be surprised at all if by 2010 there were 100,000 people in prison. I think there is every chance that, at the end of the decade, we will look back nostalgically at a figure of 80,000. The US experience shows there is no end to this.”

He added that about 6,000 people were locked up at any one time who are “profoundly mentally ill”.

The former director of the prison service was speaking as part of a Guardian investigation into the huge rise in the prison population over the last decade.

David Blunkett also admitted his regrets that, as home secretary, he was unable to convince judges of the importance of non-custodial sentences for minor offences.

“If I have a big regret about the three and half years as home secretary, it is that I never quite got that message across. Judges used to say to me that ‘there is a contradiction here; you keep saying you want more community sentences and less short prison sentences but then in the next breath you’re talking about tough sentences and life meaning life.’ They are entirely compatible as far as I’m concerned… I never wanted them to go soft but to be consistent.”

A former prison governor, Stephen Rimmer, now director of strategy at the Metropolitan police, suggested that only another Strangeways riot might gain the public’s attention on the issue of overcrowding.

Yesterday the jail population in England and Wales reached an all-time high of 80,316, including 397 locked overnight in police cells under Operation Safeguard.

But, with impending local elections, the home secretary John Reid is firmly against any new early release programme.

Ministers are in the process of building 10,000 extra prison places with “temporary custodial modules” being rushed into existing prison perimeters to create 700 more places this year. The bulk of the extra places, however, are several years behind Mr Narey’s prediction.

Lord Falconer, who will take over responsibility for prisons in May when they pass into the control of the newly created justice ministry, said yesterday the role and limits of incarceration needed to be clarified and acknowledged the need to manage the “burgeoning prison population” better. He refused to rule out a new early release programme and said he would consider legislation requiring judges to consider prison overcrowding when sentencing.

The last three years has seen a 26% increase in the number of children and young people criminalised and seven times as much is spent on youth custody as on prevention schemes. We lock up 23 children per 100,000 population, compared with six in France, two in Spain and 0.2 in Finland.

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