Winning the hearts and minds...Republicans and Video..Mine Safety

Good Morning!

Finally emerging from a week-long sick....and getting back to my blog duties at AAP and here...

So, we'll start in Iraq, as we often do. Looks like we're winning the war by wiping out the civilians..something Genghis Khan, Hitler, and Pol Pot tried with limited success.

BAGHDAD -- The death toll among Iraqi civilians in insurgency-related violence last year was more than twice as high as that of the country's soldiers and police combined, according to government figures obtained yesterday by The Associated Press.

And the civilian death count in the first two months of this year already stands at more than one-quarter of last year's total -- due largely to sectarian violence triggered by the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shi'ite shrine and car bombings in Shi'ite neighborhoods around Baghdad.

Figures compiled by the Health Ministry put the civilian death toll for 2005 at 4,024. The ministry's count for the first two months of this year is 1,093.

Death tolls for the police and army are compiled by the ministries of Interior and Defense. Their figures show that 1,695 police and soldiers were killed last year. Most of the victims -- 1,222 -- were from the police.

That pattern has continued through January and February of this year, when 155 policemen and 44 soldiers died. Iraqi soldiers have better body armor than police officers and make better use of armored vehicles. Many Iraqi police patrol the dangerous streets of Baghdad and other cities in cars and pickup trucks without armor.

There is no way to verify the figures independently. In a dangerous country that is as large as California, journalists generally tend to rely on figures provided by local police, hospitals, and the Interior Ministry.

Figures in major attacks often vary widely, with police spokesmen giving different figures to different Iraqi and international news organizations. In some cases, Interior Ministry death counts in major car bombings are different from the totals provided by subordinate police units. In some cases the discrepancy is a result of the difficulty in counting bodies ripped apart by fierce explosions. In others, politicians may be inflating figures to draw attention to the suffering of their community.

By the time the tallies are standardized, news organizations tend to have moved on to reporting other violence, and may be unaware that the figures have been adjusted.

An Associated Press count from April 28, 2005, when the current government took office, through December 2005 found that at least 3,375 Iraqi civilians and at least 1,561 Iraqi security personnel were killed.

The Brookings Institution estimates that between 5,696 and 9,934 civilians were killed in Iraq during all of 2005. Brookings estimates at least 2,569 Iraqi military and police were killed during the year, based on a monthly count by the website icasualties.org.

Turning to Louisiana now, have you seen the videotape that was obtained by the AP? Apparently, the day before Katrina struck, "president" Bush attended a full briefing in which all the concerns were raised...about the levees, about evacuating people, about not having enough troops to help in the rescue, about not having enough food and water on hand, and so on and so forth. This should become exhibit #1 in the People vs. The Bush "administration". If this isn't criminal negligence, then I don't know what is.

WASHINGTON -- The White House, already on the defensive against bipartisan allegations about its handling of port security, the Iraq war, and Hurricane Katrina, yesterday sought to stem a new flow of criticism of President Bush's level of honesty and engagement on Katrina, with Democratic lawmakers accusing Bush of covering up the ''incompetence" of the hurricane response.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said a recently released video of Bush, sitting at a Crawford, Texas, table and listening to administration officials brief him on the looming disaster in the Gulf states, shows a president ''focused on making sure that the federal assets were in place to help the people of New Orleans."

But Democrats, building on bipartisan irritation with an increasingly unpopular White House, called it more evidence of the administration's failure to protect the American people against natural disasters and national security threats. The Democratic National Committee yesterday sent out a mass e-mail of the video, saying that it ''directly contradicts Bush's attempt to excuse his administration's awful response to the worst natural disaster in American history."

The Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said the video ''confirms what we've suspected all along: that this administration is doing everything it can" to avoid responsibility for the lackluster recovery effort. ''It's certain from all the records that we have that they have systematically misled the American people to hide the basic incompetence of the recovery and response," Reid said. ''And as a result of this, it's made America less safe, not more safe."

The White House's GOP allies dismissed the video as nothing new, saying that they gave congressional investigators a transcript of the tape last year, in which Bush is warned before the storm hit that New Orleans levee system could fail.

Capitol Hill Republicans also suggested that Democrats were making too much of the video, which the Associated Press obtained and released this week. But they acknowledge that it is damaging to Bush.

The president, who enjoyed support from loyal congressional Republicans during his first term, has been the target of growing criticism from his own party on the Hill recently. Some GOP lawmakers with tough reelection campaigns or presidential ambitions have been distancing themselves from the president, who registered a historically low approval rating of 34 percent in a CBS poll this week.

Lastly today...remember the Sago Mine Disaster? Well, it's coming to light today that the teams that participated in the rescue have yet to be de-briefed by the Feds...so that means that not only are the Feds continuing their fine program of ignoring mine safety, anything the teams may have learned is slowly, but surely, receding from memory.

WASHINGTON -- Rescuers who helped pull victims out of the Sago and Aracoma mines said yesterday that they are still waiting to be interviewed by federal investigators who have not yet turned to them for insight into the January accidents.

Waiting to contribute to and learn more about the investigations has been difficult, the rescuers said during a visit to Capitol Hill that coincided with Senate hearings into mine safety.

''I would like to personally find out what their findings are," said mine rescuer Jim Klug. ''We're just as curious as you are."

The rescuers were vocal about their displeasure over federal rules that require mine rescue teams to be within two hours from mines. They said teams should be much closer than that and should be assigned to specific mines, so they could be familiar with them during accidents.

It costs roughly $250,000 to train and equip a team, they said. Rescuer Harry Powell said it's as if insurance companies don't want to spend the money on it, but ''like it when they need it."

The rescuers declined to talk about their experience inside the Sago and Aracoma Coal Alma No. 1 mines, citing the ongoing investigations into the January accidents in West Virginia.

One person survived, and 12 people were killed at Sago. Two were killed in the fire at the Aracoma mine.

Sam Stavischeck said that he has been a mine rescuer for 22 years, but that nothing prepared him for the emotional aspects of the Sago rescue, in which the victims were overcome by carbon monoxide poisoning.

''Going to the Sago Mine has been one of the roughest things I've ever done," Stavischeck said.

Phil Smith, United Mine Workers of America spokesman, said he knew of no mine rescuers who had been interviewed to date.

So, there you have it. It's Friday...everyone is feeling better....so come on, read some news and stay informed!