When hurricane Katrina hit, there was no evacuation plan for 7,000 prisoners in the New Orleans city jail, generally known as Orleans Parish Prison (OPP), or the approximate 1,500 prisoners in nearby jails. According to first-hand accounts gathered by advocates, prisoners were abandoned in their cells while the water was rising around them. They were subjected to a heavily armed “rescue” by state prison guards that involved beatings, mace and being left in the sun with no water or food for several days, followed by a transfer to state maximum security prisons. Although their treatment brought national attention to the condition of prisoners in Louisiana, and comparison to prison abuse scandals from Attica to Abu Ghraib, local government officials have attempted to dodge accountability and continue with business as usual.
zmag.org

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 — President Bush said Thursday that Vice President Dick Cheney had handled the disclosure of an accidental shooting of a hunting partner “just fine” and that the incident had been a “traumatic moment” for Mr. Cheney as well as a tragic one for the victim.

Mr. Bush’s comments were his first on the matter since Mr. Cheney wounded the victim, a 78-year-old lawyer, Harry M. Whittington, on a quail-hunting expedition in Texas last weekend and his first public reaction to an interview that Mr. Cheney gave about the incident on Wednesday to Fox News.

The remarks came on the same day that the local sheriff’s department investigating the shooting said its inquiry was closed and no charges would be filed.

The president’s words appeared to be an effort to tamp down widespread talk about tensions between him and Mr. Cheney. Mr. Bush’s aides had made little secret all week that they wished Mr. Cheney had handled the matter differently — in particular by disclosing it more quickly and via a more established channel than the Web site of a local newspaper in Texas. And on Wednesday, the White House signaled that Mr. Bush was sympathetic to that view. The incident was not made public for more than 18 hours.

“I thought his explanation yesterday was a powerful explanation,” Mr. Bush told reporters in the Oval Office, speaking of Mr. Cheney’s interview on Fox. “This is a man who likes the outdoors, and he likes to hunt. And he heard a bird flush and he turned and pulled the trigger and saw his friend get wounded. And it was a deeply traumatic moment for him, and obviously it was a tragic moment for Mr. Whittington.”
nytimes.com

WASHINGTON – A federal judge ordered the Bush administration on Thursday to release documents about its warrantless surveillance program or spell out what it is withholding, a setback to efforts to keep the program under wraps.

At the same time, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said he had worked out an agreement with the White House to consider legislation and provide more information to Congress on the eavesdropping program. The panel’s top Democrat, who has requested a full-scale investigation, immediately objected to what he called an abdication of the committee’s responsibilities.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy ruled that a private group, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, will suffer irreparable harm if the documents it has been seeking since December are not processed promptly under the Freedom of Information Act. He gave the Justice Department 20 days to respond to the group’s request.
news.yahoo.com

The White House today rejected a United Nations report saying that the Guantanamo Bay detention center should be closed and that treatment of detainees in some cases amounted to torture, calling it a “rehash” of old allegations.

The U.N. report — officially released today but reported in Monday’s Los Angeles Times — concludes that the U.S. treatment of detainees violated their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constituted torture.

It also urged the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington’s justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.

The report, compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees’ lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, followed an 18-month investigation ordered by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The team did not have access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Nonetheless, its findings — notably a conclusion that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques “must be assessed as amounting to torture” — are likely to stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended the treatment of detainees held at the prison at a news conference today.

“These are dangerous terrorists that we’re talking about that are there,” he said. “We know that Al Qaeda terrorists are trained in trying to disseminate false allegations.”
latimes.com

Now there’s some rebuttal: you’re just saying what you’ve always said, can’t you come up with anything new? If there are ‘dangerous terrorists’ there, put ’em on trial.

Chertoff evokes 9-11 in his Katrina Defense
WASHINGTON — Embattled Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff testified Wednesday that he did not take charge of his department’s faltering response to Hurricane Katrina because his personal experience during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had convinced him that micromanaging by senior officials could make matters worse.

This is their ‘defense’ for every atrocity.

A high court judge yesterday delivered a stinging attack on America, saying its idea of what constituted torture was out of step with that of “most civilised nations”.

The criticism, directed at the Bush administration’s approach to human rights, was made by Mr Justice Collins during a hearing over the refusal by ministers to request the release of three British residents held at Guantánamo Bay.

The judge said: “America’s idea of what is torture is not the same as ours and does not appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations.” He made his comments, he said, after learning of the UN report that said Guantánamo should be shut down without delay because torture was still being carried out there.
guardian.co.uk

Israel will bar Gazan workers and goods from entering Israeli territory and impose other harsh economic sanctions after a Hamas-dominated parliament is sworn in this weekend, security officials have said.

In the face of growing international and Israeli pressure to shun Hamas, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will insist the group accept his goal of reaching a peace agreement with Israel if it wants to take power, Palestinian officials said.

Abbas’ demands set the stage for a possible showdown between Hamas and Abbas, whose Fatah Party was routed in last month’s legislative election. A Hamas leader expressed confidence a compromise would be reached.

The Israeli campaign against Hamas is focused on bringing the perpetually cash-strapped Palestinian Authority to its knees by drying up desperately needed income.
aljazeera.net

The Chief Rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, has delivered an uncharacteristically stinging attack on the Church of England over its decision to disinvest in companies profiting from the occupation of Palestinian land.

Writing for today’s Jewish Chronicle, Sir Jonathan describes as “ill-judged” the General Synod’s decision last week to back disinvestment from a US company that makes giant bulldozers used by the Israeli army to demolish Palestinian homes. The timing of the vote could “not have been more inappropriate”, he said.
news.independent.co.uk

WASHINGTON (AFX) – The House of Representatives is to consider a resolution today on withholding US assistance from the Palestinian Authority unless Hamas revokes its call for the destruction of Israel.

The measure states that “no United States assistance should be provided directly to the Palestinian Authority if any representative political party holding a majority of parliamentary seats within the Palestinian Authority maintains a position calling for the destruction of Israel.”
www.iii.co.uk

The French foreign minister has accused Iran of pursuing a clandestine military nuclear programme.

Speaking on France 2 television on Thursday, Philippe Douste-Blazy said: “No civilian nuclear programme can explain the Iranian nuclear programme. So it is a clandestine Iranian military nuclear programme.

“The international community has sent a very firm message by saying to the Iranians: ‘Come back to reason. Suspend all nuclear activity and the enrichment of uranium and the conversion of uranium’.

“They are not listening to us.”
aljazeera.net

The Bush administration made an emergency request to Congress yesterday for a seven-fold increase in funding to mount the biggest ever propaganda campaign against the Tehran government, in a further sign of the worsening crisis between Iran and the west.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, said the $75m (£43m) in extra funds, on top of $10m already allocated for later this year, would be used to broadcast US radio and television programmes into Iran, help pay for Iranians to study in America and support pro-democracy groups inside the country.

Although US officials acknowledge the limitations of such a campaign, the state department is determined to press ahead with measures that include extending the government-run Voice of America’s Farsi service from a few hours a day to round-the-clock coverage.

The sudden budget request, which follows an outlay of only $4m over the last two years, is to be accompanied by a diplomatic drive by Ms Rice to discuss Tehran’s suspect nuclear weapons programme. She is to begin with a visit to Gulf states. Ms Rice told the Senate foreign affairs committee that Iranian leaders “have now crossed a point where they are in open defiance of the international community”.

She added: “The United States will actively confront the aggressive policies of the Iranian regime. At the same time, we will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country.”
guardian.co.uk