Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy

Analysis:

This Associated Press story is based on a United Nations vote on future funding. According to the story the US was the only country to vote against the budget because it objected “to funding for a follow-up to conference it considered anti-Israel.” The conference this statement is refering to was the 2001 World Conference Against Racism. There is no information on the content of that conference, only comments from a former Israeli foreign minister who said the conference “hosted the most racist speeches and proposals to be heard in an international forum since World War II.” Does this statement provide readers with any evidence that the 2001 conference was promoting racism? The only evidence in the story was that the US and Israel walked out on the conference “because of attacks on the Jewish state.” Is it clear from this statement what is meant by attacks on the Jewish state?

The only other person cited in the story is the UN Secretary General. So what does it mean when 141 nations voted to approve the budget and the US was the only dissenter? Unfortunately, the article does not pursue that question, nor does it provide any context for the US and Israeli opposition to the 2001 conference. One member of the US delegation to that conference has some interesting things to say about both Zionism and Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Another commentator who was at the conference was anti-racist activist and organizer Tim Wise. Wise is Jewish and provides an analysis of Zionism, which he believes is in violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The basic definition of racism according to that document is “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national and ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.” Would any of this information have been useful to readers in understanding why the US was the only dissenting vote in the UN?

Story:

The General Assembly approved a two-year U.N. budget of $4.17 billion Saturday, with the United States casting the only “no” vote because of objections to funding for a follow-up to conference it considered anti-Israel.

The 142-1 vote in the 192-member world body climaxed weeks of discussions and an all-night session that failed to reach consensus because of the U.S. objections that the budget included $6.7 million for a follow-up to the 2001 World Conference Against Racism. Forty-nine countries did not have delegates in the chamber for the vote.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the insistence of some members of the Group of 77, which represents 132 mainly developing countries and China, to fund a follow-up conference from the U.N.’s regular budget made it impossible for the United States to support the overall budget proposal.

The United States and Israel walked out of the September 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa, because of attacks on the Jewish state. The European Union nearly walked out but stayed until the end.

Several months later, Israel’s then-deputy foreign minister, Michael Melchior, said the Durban conference “hosted the most racist speeches and proposals to be heard in an international forum since World War II.” He added that “the conference became the mouthpiece for a new and venal form of anti-Semitism.”

The budget is traditionally approved by consensus. But the United States demanded a vote in the General Assembly’s budget committee late Friday night because of the insistence of key developing nations that the conference be funded from the regular U.N. budget rather than by voluntary contributions.

In the budget committee balloting, the financial blueprint was approved 141-1 with only the United States opposing it.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed regret in a statement “that the resolution was not adopted by consensus, marking a break with tradition after 20 years.”

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“The secretary-general urges all member states to return to consensus decision-making and to demonstrate a greater sense of flexibility and compromise, beyond individual national interests and in the common cause of multilateralism for the good of humankind,” the statement said.

In late November, Ban proposed a two-year budget of $4.2 billion, saying the small increase was not much in light of the growing demands on the United Nations to address a range of new and existing diplomatic and security challenges. It represented a 5 percent increase over the $3.8 billion budget for the years 2006 and 2007

Later, U.N. management chief Alicia Barcena said that because of inflation and exchange rates, by the time the money is actually used the budget is expected to rise to $4.4 billion. Khalilzad said that by U.S. calculations, Ban’s proposal was actually over $4.5 billion.

The United States, which pays 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular budget, made “a lot of progress” in bringing it down to about $4.2 billion Khalilzad said.

The U.S. also succeeded in getting the committee to extend the Procurement Task Force, which has been pursuing fraud and corruption in U.N. purchasing, for a year rather than six months, he said.

“If we had achieved our goal with Durban, then the prospect of our joining the consensus would have been excellent,” Khalilzad said.

The secretary-general didn’t get approval for two key requests — a new and more secure building in Baghdad for U.N. staff and offices, and funds to beef up the U.N. Department of Political Affairs and broaden its activities, including conflict prevention.

Khalilzad said these and other issues will be taken up in March, and could add additional costs to the budget.

The United States voiced objection during the negotiations to this, calling it a “piecemeal” approach where the final amount is still not known.

Analysis:

This Associated Press story is based upon a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Gates. In the AP story that appeared in the GR Press there were three issues that Defense Secretary Gates addressed – Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, yet the Pentagon news conference shows that Gates addresses China, Iran, Pakistan and the Defense Budget. Why did the AP reporter only chose three issues to report on and not other aspects of the news conference? Defense Secretary Gates is the only person cited in this story and if you read the transcript from the news conference the comments cited in the AP story are identical to those from the conference. However, only selected comments were used. Why did the AP reporter chose these particular comments?

The story is framed in the very beginning by saying that “In a year marked by progress in Iraq,” yet the story provides no evidence that there has been progress in Iraq, nor how one defines what progress means. There are no other perspectives provided on Iraq, no partisan voices, academic, or Iraqi perspectives. In the section on Guantanamo Gates comes across as wanting to close the base, but says that legal issues have prevented this from happening. There is no context for the claim that Gates wants to close Guantanamo, nor any evidence that the Bush administration would allow that to happen. Why didn’t the reporter provide an independent perspective on Guatanamo, like the work that has been done by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The last issue the AP article presents is capturing bin Laden and Afghanistan. Again, there is no information provided to verify the claims made by Gates. There are also no other perspectives in the US campaign in Afghanistan, such as those provided by the Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan or critics of US policy in Afghanistan, like that of Tariq Ali.

Story:

In a year marked by progress in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday acknowledged two bits of unfinished business in his first 12 months on the job: He has yet to close the Guantanamo Bay prison or find Osama bin Laden.

Gates held out hope that if security gains hold, U.S. troop levels in Iraq can drop through next year. But with a nod to the increased attacks in parts of Afghanistan, he did not rule out a small uptick in U.S. troops there.

While Gates would not put a specific number on Iraq troop levels, he agreed a consistent reduction over the next 12 months would leave 10 brigades there—or roughly 100,000 troops—soon after American voters go to the polls for the 2008 presidential elections.

“My hope has been that the circumstances on the ground will continue to improve in a way that would—when General (David) Petraeus and the chiefs and Central Command do their analysis in March—allow a continuation of the drawdowns at roughly the same pace as the first half of the year,” he said during a Pentagon news conference.

Gates acknowledged he still has not found a way to overcome the legal obstacles and shut down the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility where 285 suspected terrorists are being held—some for as many as six years.

“I think that the principal obstacle has been resolving a lot of the legal issues associated with closing Guantanamo and what you do with the prisoners when they come back,” he said. “So, I would say that the honest answer is that because of some of these legal concerns … there has not been much progress in this respect.”

At the same time, U.S. military forces have not found bin Laden, the man responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“We are continuing the hunt,” Gates said, adding that progress will be marked by the day when “the president goes out in front and says that we have either captured or killed him.”

Gates acknowledged that the U.S. is looking at adding a small number of forces in Afghanistan, where the U.S. already carries the largest share of the load with about 26,000 troops.

The U.S. has been pressing allies to increase their commitment there. Gates said that he is still looking for creative ways for them to do that—including meeting commanders needs for 3,500 more trainers, another 3,000 combat troops, and some helicopters.

There are 158,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Plans call for reducing the 20 combat brigades to 15 by next summer. Five more could come out in the second half of the year, he said, if security gains continue.

One combat brigade that left Iraq this month became the first to not be replaced.

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Asked if the U.S. will fill any of those troop requirements, he said the Pentagon “will be looking at the requirements ourselves. And we will be talking with our allies.”

A former CIA director, Gates took over the Pentagon last December after the embattled Donald Rumsfeld stepped down. Since then he has seen both victories and defeats.

Overall, however, Iraq dominated his year—with four trips to the warfront, an overhaul of his commanders, a shift in strategy and a battery of hearings and reviews.

“It was a year that began with a surge of troops in Iraq and has ended with a sharp decline in violence,” Gates said. “The war is far from over. And we must protect and build on the gains earned with the blood of our military, our allies and our Iraqi partners.”

Gates was cautiously optimistic about further troop reductions. But he said he regretted putting a specific number on that projection in September, when he expressed the hope that forces could drop to 100,000, by the end of 2008 if conditions in Iraq improved.

“We obviously want to sustain the gains that we have already made,” he said, adding that the capacity of Iraqi forces to bear more of the security burden and the ability of the Iraqi government to run the country are key to how quickly U.S. forces can leave.

Asked about the possibility of political reforms in Iraq, Gates said the country’s leaders “are committed to getting it done. We’ll see if they get it done.”

The progress in Afghanistan has been mixed, Gates said, noting that violence increased as the coalition forces launched more aggressive attacks against the insurgents. Al-Qaida also has stepped up its activities.

He said he was told Friday morning that there has been a 40 percent drop in cross-border attacks in eastern Afghanistan over the last six months.

Gates also signaled a small, if temporary, victory on Friday, saying that because Congress recently passed legislation providing $70 billion for combat operations, there will be no layoff notices sent out during the holiday season. That possibility had loomed until Congress passed the spending bill.

Still, he warned that paying for the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan in fits and starts undermines military planning and risks the gains made by American troops.

And noting that the funding is less than half that requested by the president, Gates said the layoffs and cutbacks may resurface in a few months.

Analysis:

This Associated Press story is based upon the reaction to a decision by the New Orleans City Council to demolish a reported 4,500 public housing units. Why does the headline focus on what the police used on protesters instead what the people were protesting against? The opening paragraph also frames the story on the conflict between police and protesters first instead of stating the reasons for public resistance. Only one protester was cited in the story saying “I was just standing, trying to get into my City Council meeting.” Does that statement tell readers anything about why this woman was at the City Council meeting? The only other person cited in the story was the New Orleans police chief who denied that his officers used “excessive force.”

The sections of the AP story that the GR Press omitted do source one of the protest organizers, as well as a CEO of Providence Community Housing that was in favor of demolition, a law professor who was against demolition, and a local minister. However, in neither version of the story is there any context for the protest and what the real consequences of the New Orleans City Council decision will be. In reading an independent report from Democracy Now that included interviews with protest organizers you get a significantly different picture than what the AP story provided. The decision to demolish public housing is also an effort to further privatize what were once publicly funded programs, as was reported by independent journalist Naomi Klein.

Story:

After violent clashes with police at City Hall, protesters vowed that the fight over a plan to demolish 218 public housing buildings for the poor was far from over, both in the courts and on the streets.

On Thursday, police used chemical spray and stun guns on protesters who tried to force their way into a City Council meeting where the members voted unanimously to allow the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to demolish 4,500 public housing units.

The vote allows demolition crews to begin tearing down the buildings within weeks unless they are blocked in the courts. Lawyers fighting the demolition say they have not exhausted their legal options.

Police said 15 people were arrested on charges ranging from battery to disorderly conduct. Four people were taken to hospitals — two of them women who had been stunned with Tasers — and five others were injured and treated on the scene, police said. All four in the hospital were stable, police said.

Protesters said they pushed against the iron gates that kept them out of the building because the Housing Authority of New Orleans had disproportionately allowed supporters of the demolition to pack the council’s chambers. Dozens tried to force their way in.

At the peak of the confusion, some 70 protesters were facing about a dozen mounted police and 40 more law enforcement officers on foot.

One woman was sprayed by police and dragged from the gates; emergency workers took her away on a stretcher. Another woman said she was stunned by officers, and still had what appeared to be a Taser wire hanging from her shirt.

“I was just standing, trying to get into my City Council meeting,” said the dazed woman, Kim Ellis, who was taken away in an ambulance.

Most of the units HUD plans to demolish are vacant, and many suffered heavy damage in Katrina, but those who oppose their demolition say they should be improved instead.

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Endesha Juakali, a protest leader arrested on a charge of disturbing the peace, said the confrontation with the council was not the last breath from protesters.

“For everything they do, we have to make them pay a political consequence,” Juakali said. He vowed that when the bulldozers try to demolish the St. Bernard complex, “it’s going to be an all out effort.”

For weeks, protesters have been gearing up to battle with bulldozers and have discussed a variety of tactics, including lying in front of the machinery.

Thursday’s confrontation was the most violent and tense of a string of protests that have brought attention to the plight of a growing number of homeless and the lack of inexpensive housing for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Jerry Brown, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said demolition crews should be able to get to work soon, although some final details may need to be hammered out and presented to city officials before that can happen.

Developers chosen by HUD to do the $700 million in redevelopment work said they were eager to get started and that the protracted fight over demolitions has stood in the way of building better communities.

“To begin moving forward you need to do the demolition,” said James Kelly, president and CEO of Providence Community Housing, a group associated with the Catholic church and chosen to redevelop the Lafitte housing complex.

“Is this what democracy looks like?” Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor who opposes demolition, said as he held a strand of Taser wire he said had been shot into another of the protesters.

Critics of the plan say it will drive poor people from neighborhoods where they have lived for generations, but HUD denies that and says the plan will create an equal amount of affordable housing as existed before Katrina hit.

The council promised to monitor the redevelopment and make sure the poor have places to come back to, but those assurances did little to assuage opponents.

“The vote was already a done deal,” the Rev. Marshall Truehill said. “There were no concessions.”

Analysis:

This article is based upon a recent debate between GOP candidates for President on the Spanish language cable station Univision. The article says in the second paragraph “The first Republican presidential forum to be conducted in Spanish took place at a time when opinion polls are showing Hispanic voters moving away from the party,” but there is no information in the story to verify that claim. This is the case in the Grand Rapids Press version of this Washington Post article, but the original version does say “Hispanic voters have shifted their allegiance away from Republicans, according to a recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center.” The very next sentence says “Some observers have blamed anti-Hispanic rhetoric within the GOP,” but never cite who the “some” are.

The GR Press version of the article only mentions three of the GOP candidates, Huckabee, Romney and Senator John McCain, but the original article mentions that most of the other GOP candidates were also part of the debate. The GR Press version of the article quotes Huckabee, Romney, and McCain. Do readers have a clearer understanding of their position on immigration based on these quotes? In the case of Senator McCain, the reporter could have investigated his voting record on immigration policy. No where in this article does the reporter provide any information on what the position of Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Giuliani, Paul, and Hunter. Tom Tancredo refused to participate in the debate. His website states the following on his boycott of the debate, “It is the law that to become a naturalized citizen of this country you must have knowledge and understanding of English, including a basic ability to read, write, and speak the language. So what may I ask are our presidential candidates doing participating in a Spanish speaking debate?”

Story:

Contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, who have taken a tough stance on immigration issues affecting many Hispanics, were called upon Sunday night to defend their positions in front of viewers of the nation’s largest Spanish-language television network.

The first Republican presidential forum to be conducted in Spanish took place at a time when opinion polls are showing Hispanic voters moving away from the party. Some observers have blamed anti-Hispanic rhetoric within the GOP, especially comments regarding illegal immigration, for the disaffection.

Accordingly, the first half of the 90-minute forum, broadcast on Univision, focused on immigration-related issues — whether English should be the official language, whether illegal immigrants should be offered a path to citizenship, and what each candidate might do to calm an anti-Hispanic fervor.

The candidates sought to emphasize their enthusiasm for legal immigration as a source of the nation’s vitality, even as they underscored their strong stances against illegal immigration.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee cited such immigration as fanning the flames of anti-Hispanic bias. Calling such attitudes “un-American,” Huckabee added, “Quite frankly, when we fix the situation and make the border secure and people are here legally, a lot of the sentiment goes away.”

At the forum, held at the University of Miami, questions were asked in Spanish, translated for the candidates, who answered in English, and then translated into Spanish for the television audience.

The questions came from Univision news anchors Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, who tried, with mixed success, to get the candidates to directly answer tough questions.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who earlier this month fired his landscaping company because it had hired undocumented workers, side-stepped a question about whether he reported the violation to immigration authorities.

Romney described the owner of the company as an “old friend” and added, “He did his best, but he made a mistake.” He went on to note that it is difficult for employers to verify immigration status.

Throughout the forum, the candidates repeatedly affirmed their respect for the role of Hispanics in society and highlighted their affiliations, if any, with them.

“We will be enriched by their music, their culture, their food. Hispanics will love this country and defend it,” Sen. John McCain of Arizona said in answer to a question about the future of Hispanics in the nation.

As a group, the candidates characterized Hispanic voters as natural constituents of the Republican Party.

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“Hispanic Americans serve in the military. We salute them. Hispanic Americans are entrepreneurs and businesspeople. Hispanic Americans are family-oriented and people of faith,” Romney said.

Hispanic voters “know that marriage is between a man and a woman,” Thompson said.

In the Republican field, McCain stands alone for his support of controversial immigration legislation that would have given illegal workers a pathway to legal residency. The proposal has been derided by other candidates as “amnesty.”

“We have to address this issue with compassion and love because these are human beings,” McCain said. “Of course there can’t be amnesty.”

Noting the role of Hispanic soldiers in Vietnam and Iraq, McCain said, “Some of their parents came here illegally.”

Also taking part in Sunday’s forum were former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado skipped the debate.

In a similar forum for Democratic candidates held here in September, all eight participants supported changes that would allow illegal immigrants now in the country to stay and eventually receive U.S. citizenship. All also criticized anti-immigrant attitudes, and nearly all committed to overhauling immigration laws in their first year in office.

As the Democrats and Republicans have divided over how to deal with the millions of undocumented workers in the United States, Hispanic voters have shifted their allegiance away from Republicans, according to a recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center.

About 57 percent of Hispanic registered voters now call themselves Democrats or lean toward the Democrats; 23 percent favor Republicans, according to the study, a 34 percentage point gap. Just last year, the gap was only 21 points, the report said.

Early on in the debate, Ramos and Salinas asked whether the candidates risked alienating conservatives by even appearing on Univision.

“The far greater risk is if we didn’t,” Huckabee said.

Analysis:

This Associated Press article that ran in the Grand Rapids Press is based on the recent meeting of the United Nations Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia. As you can see, most of the original version of the article was excluded from the GR Press version. The GR Press version only includes comments from a US State Department spokesperson, but the original version had comments from a representative from Micronesia and the UN Climate Chief. The article does mention that the Bush administration has initiated a different set of meetings with “16 other major economies” but there is no mention of how that process will work or if there is any accountability to the global community.

The article also states that “Environmentalists accuse the Bush administration of using those parallel talks to subvert the long-running U.N. negotiations and the spirit of the binding Kyoto Protocol, which requires 36 industrial nations to make relatively modest cuts in “greenhouse” gases.” However, no environmental groups are mentioned by name, nor are any of the details of what the Kyoto Protocol requires of countries. The last sentence states that there were some demonstrations worldwide, but only mentions one in London with “skiers, fire-eaters and an ice sculptor.” There is no mention of other protests or positions that these groups were taking against the current round of talks on Global Warming. A good example of one group protesting was the Gloabl Forest Coalition.

Story:

The United States will come up with its own plan to cut global-warming gases by mid-2008, and won’t commit to mandatory caps at the U.N. climate conference here, the chief U.S. negotiator said Saturday.

“We’re not ready to do that here,” said Harlan Watson, the State Department’s senior climate negotiator and special representative. “We’re working on that, what our domestic contribution would be, and again we expect that sometime before the end of the Major Economies process.”

That process of U.S.-led talks was inaugurated last September by President Bush, who invited 16 other “major economies” such as the Europeans, Japan, China and India, to Washington to discuss a future international program of cutbacks in carbon dioxide and other emissions blamed for global warming.

Environmentalists accuse the Bush administration of using those parallel talks to subvert the long-running U.N. negotiations and the spirit of the binding Kyoto Protocol, which requires 36 industrial nations to make relatively modest cuts in “greenhouse” gases.

The United States is the only major industrial country to have rejected Kyoto and its obligatory targets.

In London, skiers, fire-eaters and an ice sculptor joined in worldwide demonstrations Saturday to draw attention to climate change and push governments to take stronger action.

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The U.S. leadership instead favors a more voluntary approach, in which individual nations determine what they can contribute to a global effort, without taking on obligations under the U.N. climate treaty.

Watson’s comments reaffirmed that the Bush administration views its own talks as the main event in discussions over climate change.

The European Union, on the other hand, has committed to binding emissions reductions of 20 percent by 2020. Midway through the two-week Bali conference, many of the more than 180 assembled nations were demanding such firm commitments from Washington as well, as the world talks about a framework to follow Kyoto when it expires in 2012.

“It would be useful for Annex I, non-Kyoto countries” — code for the U.S. — “to indicate what level of effort” they’ll make, said M.J. Mace, a delegate from the Pacific nation of Micronesia, whose islands are threatened by seas rising from global warming.

The conference’s main negotiating text, tabled for debate on Saturday and obtained by The Associated Press, mentions targets, but in a nonbinding way.

Its preamble notes the widely accepted view that industrial nations’ emissions should be cut by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to help head off climate change’s worst impacts — expanding oceans, spreading droughts, dying species, extreme weather and other effects.

Even mentioning such numbers in the conference’s key document may set off renewed debate next week, when environment ministers and other ranking leaders join the talks, which are meant to launch a two-year negotiation for a post-Kyoto deal.

Delegates here made progress in the first week on such secondary matters as establishing a system for compensating tropical forest nations for reducing deforestation, a major source of carbon emissions. They’re expected to approve work on measuring forest cover, emissions and related factors.

“I’ve observed a strong willingness on the part of countries to get a successful outcome in Bali,” the U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, told reporters in assessing the first week.

American negotiator Watson said the Bush administration is planning probably four more meetings in the Major Economies series before a “leaders’ meeting” in mid-2008 presents a final outcome.

Asked how the U.S.-organized process would complement the U.N. treaty talks, he said, “We think if we could get agreement among these 17 economies, or a good portion of them anyway, that would certainly contribute to that discussion in terms of any sort of interim goals or targets that might be discussed.”

But he acknowledged it remained unclear how the two “tracks” would merge.

For one thing, there’s no guarantee the Europeans, for example, would fully join in what is likely to be a voluntary emissions regime. And as Bush’s White House term nears its end, the rest of the world may be looking instead for a fresh start under a new president less resistant to binding international cooperation. Democratic and some Republican presidential hopefuls favor mandatory reductions.

The U.N.’s De Boer, in fact, implied that the world ought to wait before debating binding targets.

“I really hope that that is a discussion that will be taken up toward the end of that two years rather than here,” he told reporters.

The talks to follow Bali would also attempt to draw China, Brazil and other fast-developing economies — all exempted from binding reductions under Kyoto — into some arrangement whereby they would slow growth in their emissions.

Analysis:

This Associated Press article is based op the recent House of Representatives vote on legislation called the Energy and Independence Security Act. The article mentions several of the bill’s provision, particularly the requirement of energy companies to produce a percentage of renewable energy, an end in some tax breaks to oil companies, and new fuel efficiency standards. There are numerous other aspects of the legislation that were not included in this article. The story begins by say, “It surprised even some environmentalists,” but never mentions which environmentalists or environmental groups who were “surprised.” Therefore, how does the reporter know that environmentalists are surprised? Several environmental groups did take a clear position on this issue, like the Friends of the Earth, yet no environmental perspectives are provided.

This AP article spends a great deal of time discussing how the White House may veto the legislation and even quotes a White House spokesperson who says “Their proposal would raise taxes and increase energy prices for Americans.” The reporter provides no verification of this claim or any indication that the White House Press Secretary was questioned on the matter. Other sources cited in the story are Rep. Pelosi & Boehner and Senators Reid and McConnell. There was mention that Michigan Representative John Dingell worked out a deal with Rep. Pelosi, since Dingell is “a longtime staunch protector of the auto industry.” The article doesn’t mention how much money the auto industry has given Dingell in campaign contributions, nor does the article address the amount of money that oil companies have given to candidates and elected officials over the years.

Story:

It surprised even some environmentalists when a $21 billion tax package, much of it new taxes on oil companies, emerged in the House Democrats’ energy bill. A requirement on utilities to use renewable fuels was expected to be abandoned as well.

They could cause problems in the Senate, prompt a presidential veto and jeopardize a historic push for the first major increase in automobile fuel economy in 32 years, some lawmakers worried.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pressed ahead with the entire package, taxes and all. “We have to pay for the bill,” she told reporters.

And for the time being, Pelosi’s instincts appeared to have been rewarded.

The House passed the energy legislation by a solid — though not veto-proof — 235-181 margin, sending it to the Senate for likely action next week.

“I don’t think anybody can predict what will happen in the Senate,” Pelosi conceded after the vote, but added confidently – and with a hint of possible further compromise: “We will have a bill.”

The House-passed legislation would roll back $13.5 billion in tax breaks enjoyed by the five largest U.S. oil companies with the money to be used for tax incentives for development of renewable energy sources like ethanol from grasses and wood chips and biodiesel and for energy efficiency programs and conservation.

It also would impose new efficiency standards for appliances, building construction and require expansion of the use of ethanol sevenfold to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022 with 21 billion gallons coming from cellulosic feedstock such as wood chips and prairie grass.

But the centerpiece of the bill is a requirement to boost automobile fuel economy by 40 percent to an industry average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, the first such action since 1975, when Congress first enacted the federal auto fuel economy requirements.

Pelosi garnered enough support to assure passage in the House by working out a deal with Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a longtime staunch protector of the auto industry. Dingell more than a year ago warned auto executives the tide had turned on fuel economy and it was inevitable that stricter requirements were in the offing. He got some concessions to help the industry in return for his support of the bill.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino called the House-passed bill “misguided” and unacceptable, and said President Bush would veto it if the bill is not changed.

“Their proposal would raise taxes and increase energy prices for Americans. That is a misguided approach and if it made it to the president’s desk, he would veto it,” said Perino.
The White House in an earlier statement called the proposed taxes on the oil companies unfairly “punitive” to a single industry and said the requirement for electric utilities nationwide to use renewable fuels such as wind and solar to generate 15 percent of their electricity would be harmful to some regions where there is little wind or solar energy potential, resulting in higher electricity costs.

But Democrats characterized the legislation as “a new direction” in U.S. energy policy away from dependence on fossil fuels.

“We will send our energy dollars to the Midwest, not the Middle East,” declared Pelosi. “The point of this is, are we about the past or are we about the future.”

But Republicans said the actions amount to government mandates that would lead to higher energy prices while doing little to spur production of more domestic oil or natural gas – fuels they say will remain essential for decades to come.

“There’s nothing in here that’s going to lower gas prices in America … nothing that is going to help American families deal with heating costs this winter … nothing to increase production,” complained Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said an energy bill could pass the Senate, but without the “twin millstones of tax hikes and utility bill increases around its neck.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters he will move quickly to take up the bill. When asked about its prospects, Reid said, “I don’t know. We’re going to try very hard.”

Analysis:

This Washington Post story ran in the Grand Rapids Press as 2 separate stories on Iraq. The story begins by focusing on the Iraqi refugee crisis and quotes an Iraqi official who says that Iraq can not handle a hug influx of refugees at the present. The way the Press restructured the article in then states that the Iraqi government just signed an agreement that “called a final one-year extension of authorization for U.S.-led forces to stay in Iraq.” The story then jumps to an announcement that there was a US soldier killed, then back to a program “to assist about 30,000 refugees and internally displaced people” in Baghdad that was being led by the United nations.

The second story in the Press that was part of the original single Washington Post story is about a new video message from one of the insurgent groups in Iraq, the Shiite Islamic Resistance. The story states that they are holding hostage a man with a British accent and will “kill the captive in 10 days unless British troops withdrew from Iraq, apologized to the Iraqi people and ended the presence of “fake companies and organizations” that “devour the body of Iraq and Iraqis.”

Why did the Press break this Washington Post article into two separate stories? In the section about the refugees not much information is provided as to the current situation of Iraqi refugees that the United Nations Refugee Agency has been monitoring. Would it have been useful for readers to have information about the scope of the Iraqi refugee crisis, the numbers and where they are located? The story sources an Iraqi official who says that they can not handle Iraqis who want to return, but what the article doesn’t report is that despite the Iraq governments unwillingness to accept returnees, Iraqis are coming back by the hundreds, especially from Syria.

Then there is the section about the new Iraqi insurgent group who has taken a hostage and sent a new video message. The article does quote the insurgent groups’ motives for the hostage taking, but there is no additional information that would provide some context for this action. In many ways this story, even though begins with the focus being Iraqi refugees, quickly shifts to and only personalizes a US soldier killed and a British hostage. This kind of news reporting is continuing what unembedded reporter in Iraq, Dahr Jamal, has noted in a recent column that “Iraq Has Only Militants, No Civilians.” Why is it that the Iraqi refugees, which are civilians, not humanized in this news story, but a British hostage is?

Story:

The Iraqi government on Tuesday urged some refugees not to go back to their homes yet, saying the country was unprepared to accommodate their return.

“The reality is that we cannot handle a huge influx of people,” Abdul Samad al-Sultan, the minister of displacement and migration, said at a news conference to announce a joint plan with the United Nations to help returning Iraqis. “The refugees in some countries, we ask them to wait.”

The acknowledgment came as the Iraqi cabinet asked the United Nations for what the government called a final one-year extension of authorization for U.S.-led forces to stay in Iraq. But in a newly released video, insurgents threatened to kill a British hostage unless the United Kingdom withdrew its forces.

The U.S. military announced that a U.S. soldier was killed by an explosion Monday in Anbar province. Two other service members were reported wounded.

Meanwhile in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, Iraqi and U.N. officials launched a program to assist about 30,000 refugees and internally displaced people, or IDPs, by giving them support packages and repair kits. The aid will be delivered by the United Nations, which will support the program with an initial contribution of $11 million.

The world body estimates that 40,000 refugees and 10,000 internally displaced people have returned to their homes, primarily in the Baghdad area. But it said it was “not encouraging or promoting the return of refugees or IDPs.”

Second Story in the Grand Rapids Press

In the video, aired Tuesday on al-Arabiya television, masked men holding assault rifles flanked one of five British citizens kidnapped from the Finance Ministry in Baghdad in May.

“Hello, my name is Jason and today is the 18th of November,” said a man with a British accent who was seated on the ground wearing a tan jumpsuit. “I have been here now held for 173 days and I feel we have been forgotten.”

The group, called the Shiite Islamic Resistance in Iraq, said it would kill the captive in 10 days unless British troops withdrew from Iraq, apologized to the Iraqi people and ended the presence of “fake companies and organizations” that “devour the body of Iraq and Iraqis.”

British officials declined to identify the men, a computer instructor and four bodyguards, or comment further about the kidnapping, saying further publicity would jeopardize behind-the-scenes work to secure their release.

Text from the original article ommitted from the Grand Rapids Press version:

“We condemn the publication of the video and we regard it as extremely unhelpful and distressing to the families,” said Mark Bell, a spokesman for the British Embassy in Baghdad.

But Iraqi officials said U.S. and British troops needed to remain in Iraq, and the cabinet voted to ask the United Nations to authorize the U.S.-led forces to remain in the country until the end of next year, according to government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

“The renewal of this mandate will protect Iraq,” said Dabbagh, who added that the cabinet vote did not need ratification by parliament. “There was really almost no discussion about it by the cabinet.”

Also Tuesday, in the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, an Arab political bloc ended its year-long boycott of the provincial council, a step toward reconciliation sought by U.S. officials. Members of the Iraqi Republican Gathering agreed to return to the council in exchange for Arabs receiving nearly a third of the positions in local government.

“This is a big achievement for Kirkuk and brotherhood and peaceful living together,” said Razgar ali Hamajan, a Kurd who is head of the Kirkuk provincial council.

Sultan, the minister of displacement and migration, said the Iraqi government has allocated $100 million to help returning families and an additional $10 million to provide food for them.

Analysis:

This New York Times article that appeared in the Grand Rapids Press is based on President Bush’s response to the finding of a new National Intelligence Estimate report on Iran’s nuclear program. Bush is sourced as saying that despite the report’s findings Iran is still a threat, but nothing that the President says in the story, nor anything the reporter writes provides an evidence that Iran is still a threat. The President says “Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous, if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” A reasonable question for reporters to ask at this point would be, “Iran is dangerous based on what evidence?”

The only other source cited in the Grand Rapids Press version of the New York Times story in Iranian President Ahmadinejad. In the original version of the Times story we read the comments by a Democratic Congresswoman, a Republican Senator, Secretary of State Rice, an unnamed European diplomat, Presidential candidate Joseph Biden, and a “Middle East expert” named Flynt Leverett, who is with the New America Foundation.

Story:

President Bush warned on Tuesday that Iran remained a threat despite an intelligence assessment that it had halted a covert program to develop nuclear weapons four years ago, as the administration struggled to save a diplomatic process now in disarray.

Once again facing criticism over the handling — and meaning — of intelligence reports, Mr. Bush said the new assessment underscored the need to intensify international efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

He said Iran could not be entrusted with acquiring even the scientific knowledge to enrich uranium for peaceful civilian use, explicitly declaring for the first time what has been an underlying premise of the administration’s policy. He also appeared to rule out any new diplomatic initiative with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Look, Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous, if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Bush said during a news conference dominated by questions about the fallout of the assessment, known as a National Intelligence Estimate. “What’s to say they couldn’t start another covert nuclear weapons program?”

The assessment reversed one in 2005 that asserted that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons,” with American intelligence agencies now saying that they do not know whether Iran intends to take that step.

Mr. Bush said the reversal was based on “a great discovery” by American intelligence agencies, but neither he nor other officials would elaborate. Current and former American and foreign officials said the new findings were based on intercepted communications and accounts provided by individuals with access to information about Iran’s nuclear program.
Ahmandinejad today called the report a “declaration of victory” for Iran’s nuclear program.

“This was a final shot to those who, in the past several years, spread a sense of threat and concern in the world through lies of nuclear weapons,” he told thousands of people during a visit to Ilam province in western Iran.

“Thanks to your resistance, a fatal shot was fired at the dreams of ill-wishers and the truthfulness of the Iranian nation was once again proved by the ill-wishers themselves,” he said, drawing celebratory whistles from the crowd.

Text from the original article ommitted from the Grand Rapids Press version:

Representative Jane Harman, a Democrat of California, said she read the classified version of the report on Tuesday and described the intelligence agencies’ work as “a sea change” from the 2005 assessment in the quality of its analysis and presentation of facts. Asked about the basis for the new findings, she said: “I think we have some better sourcing. That’s all I can say.”

Mr. Bush’s remarks did little to silence critics, who have accused him of hyping the case for confronting Iran. Nor did it ease concerns of some allies.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, said he was perplexed by the new assessment and suspicious of the new evidence. “We should all look under the hood of these intelligence reports,” he said.

Mr. Bush and his senior aides spent the day trying to hold together the already fragile coalition of world powers seeking to rein in Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Mr. Bush telephoned President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has voiced skepticism about an aggressive American effort to punish and isolate Iran.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also telephoned her counterparts from the five other countries that have been pursuing United Nations sanctions against Iran to urge that the coalition continue work on a new round of increasingly tighter sanctions.

“This report is not an ‘O.K., everybody needs to relax and quit’ report,” Mr. Bush said. “This is a report that says what has happened in the past could be repeated and that the policies used to cause the regime to halt are effective policies. And let’s keep them up. Let’s continue to work together.”

There were already signs that that effort had been complicated by the new report. R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, held a teleconference call Tuesday morning with his counterparts from France, Germany, China, Britain and Russia.

“We’re all flabbergasted,” one European diplomat said of the report generally. “You get such a surprise, and then you sit together and consider how to move forward. To be on safe ground, we decided to keep moving forward” with the effort to press for further sanctions.

A senior administration official said the intelligence assessment on Iran was a setback in the effort to persuade China to endorse a new round of sanctions at the United Nations Security Council. While there had been indications over the weekend that the Chinese might drop their opposition to such a move, it appeared on Tuesday that they were reconsidering again, the official said.

The new intelligence assessment, the official said, “gives the Chinese an opportunity to get off the hook.”

Mr. Bush opened himself to new criticism over his credibility when he said that the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, alerted him about new intelligence about Iran’s weapons program in August but did not explain what it was in detail.

As recently as October, Mr. Bush continued to warn darkly of Iran’s nuclear weapons threat, invoking World War III, despite the new information. He responded to a question about that on Tuesday by saying he had received the final assessment, with its drastically altered findings, only last week.

“That’s not believable,” said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the Democrat who is chairman of the foreign relations committee and a candidate for president. “I refuse to believe that. If that’s true, he has the most incompetent staff in American, modern American history and he’s one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.”
While many officials, lawmakers and diplomats focused on the halting of Iran’s weapons program, Mr. Bush emphasized the report’s finding that “a growing amount of intelligence indicates Iran was engaged in covert uranium conversion and uranium enrichment activity” from the late 1980s until the freezing of that effort in 2003. Mr. Bush’s senior aides describe that as the first evidence of what many officials had only suspected.

“And so I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program,” Mr. Bush said. “They halted the program. And the reason why it’s a warning signal is that they could restart it.”

Critics, though, blamed the administration’s hard line and harsh language for compounding Iran’s determination and undermining diplomatic efforts. They called on the administration to make a more concerted diplomatic effort to persuade Iran’s government to abide by its commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“Their actions have been totally self-defeating,” Mr. Biden said of the Bush administration. “Every time they rattle the saber, what happens is the security premium for oil goes up. It raises the price of oil. It puts more money in the pocket of Ahmadinejad and the very people we think are the bad guys.”

Mr. Bush maintained that the administration had made offers to Iran as part of the European Union’s diplomatic efforts as long ago as 2003, including promising American support for membership in the World Trade Organization and an easing of sanctions to allow the sale of spare airplane parts.

“What changed was the change of leadership in Iran,” he said, referring to the elections in Iran in 2005. “We had a diplomatic track going, and Ahmadinejad came along and took a different tone. And the Iranian people must understand that the tone and actions of their government are that which is isolating them.”

Flynt Leverett, a Middle East expert at the New America Foundation who served on the National Security Council under Mr. Bush, said the president had consistently ruled out any real entreaty to Iran that could resolve the international deadlock over its nuclear ambitions.

“The really uncomfortable part for the administration, aside from the embarrassment, is the policy implication,” Mr. Leverett said of the assessment. “The dirty secret is the administration has never put on the table an offer to negotiate with Iran the issues that would really matter: their own security, the legitimacy of the Islamic republic and Iran’s place in the regional order.”

Analysis:

This New York Times article is based on a new study from the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program. What does the headline “World War III can wait” imply? The first few paragraphs of the story are framed in such a way as to make readers think that what the Bush administration has been saying on Iran was true and that a war with Iran was all but certain. Some of the words and phrases used were “so completely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a foreign policy debate,” “It will certainly weaken international support for tougher sanctions against Iran,” and “The biggest change, though, could be its effect on President Bush’s last year in office, as well as on the campaign to replace him. Until Monday, 2008 seemed to be a year destined to be consumed, at least when it comes to foreign policy, by the prospects of confrontation with Iran.” It is as if the reporter is just as surprised by the intelligence study as the Bush administration. This pro-administration position by the mainstream news media on Iran is not new. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) noted that the major media adopted much of the Bush administration’s claims about Iran in 2005 and more recently in 2007.

The article does cite a Republican Senator and an administration national security advisor. No Democratic Party, Iranian or independent voices are cited in the GR Press version of the story. In the omitted sections of the New York Times article there are other sources, such as a spokesperson from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Kurt M. Campbell, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, and John R. Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations. None of these sources could be considered independent of the current or former US government administrations.

Story:

Rarely, if ever, has a single intelligence report so completely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a foreign policy debate here.

An administration that had cited Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons as the rationale for an aggressive foreign policy — as an attempt to head off World War III, as President Bush himself put it only weeks ago — now has in its hands a classified document that undercuts much of the foundation for that approach.

The impact of the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusion — that Iran had halted a military program in 2003, though it continues to enrich uranium, ostensibly for peaceful uses — will be felt in endless ways at home and abroad.

It will certainly weaken international support for tougher sanctions against Iran, as a senior administration official grudgingly acknowledged. And it will raise questions, again, about the integrity of America’s beleaguered intelligence agencies, including whether what are now acknowledged to have been overstatements about Iran’s intentions in a 2005 assessment reflected poor tradecraft or political pressure.

Seldom do those agencies vindicate irascible foreign leaders like President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who several weeks ago said there was “no evidence” that Iran was building a nuclear weapon, dismissing the American claims as exaggerated.

The biggest change, though, could be its effect on President Bush’s last year in office, as well as on the campaign to replace him. Until Monday, 2008 seemed to be a year destined to be consumed, at least when it comes to foreign policy, by the prospects of confrontation with Iran.

There are still hawks in the administration, Vice President Dick Cheney chief among them, who view Iran with deep suspicion. But for now at least, the main argument for a military conflict with Iran — widely rumored and feared, judging by antiwar protesters that often greet Mr. Bush during his travels — is off the table for the foreseeable future.

As Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, put it, the intelligence finding removes, “if nothing else, the urgency that we have to attack Iran, or knock out facilities.” He added: “I don’t think you can overstate the importance of this.”

The White House struggled to portray the estimate as a validation of Mr. Bush’s strategy, a contention that required swimming against the tide of Mr. Bush’s and Mr. Cheney’s occasionally apocalyptic language.

The national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, said the estimate showed that suspicions about Iran’s intentions were warranted, given that it had a weapons program in the first place.

“On balance, the estimate is good news,” Mr. Hadley said, appearing at the White House. “On one hand, it confirms that we were right to be worried about Iran seeking to develop nuclear weapons. On the other hand, it tells us that we have made some progress in trying to ensure that that does not happen. But it also tells us that the risk of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon remains a very serious problem.”

Mr. Hadley insisted, as he and others have, that the administration had hoped and still hoped to resolve the outstanding questions about Iran’s nuclear programs using diplomacy, not force. But the nuances of his on-this-hand-on-the-other argument will probably make it much harder to persuade American allies to accept the administration’s harder line.

One official pointed out that the chief American diplomat on the Iran question, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, had just met with counterparts from Europe, Russia and China, and had seemed to make some headway on winning support for a third round of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council. The official said Mr. Burns could not divulge the intelligence findings at that meeting on Friday because Congress had not been briefed.

The immediate task for Mr. Burns and other administration officials is to untangle the confusion caused by its own statements and findings and to persuade skeptics that this time, the United States has it right about what Iran was doing before 2003 and what that means for what it might do in the future.

Text from the original article ommitted from the Grand Rapids Press version:

“The way this will play is that the intelligence community has admitted it was wrong,” said Jon B. Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “So why should we believe them now?”

Mr. Hadley said the drastic reversal in the intelligence agencies’ knowledge about Iran’s weapons programs was based “on new intelligence, some of which has been received in the last few months.”

He also said that he and other senior officials, including Mr. Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, had reviewed it and debated it two weeks ago.

With some of the administration’s most prominent hawks having departed and not taking part in the review of findings like these, it is possible that the zeal for another military conflict has diminished. After all, the first two wars on Mr. Bush’s watch remain unresolved at best.

Senator Hagel said he hoped that the administration might in its final year in office show the kind of diplomatic flexibility it did with North Korea over its nuclear weapons or with the conference in Annapolis, Md., last week on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has previously called for the United States to open direct and unconditional talks with Iran to end the state of enmity that has existed since 1979.

He said Iran’s halt of weapons activity had created an opening for such talks, indicating, as the assessment does, that Iran’s government may be more rational than the one that Mr. Bush said in August had threatened to put the entire region “under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust.”

“If we’re wise here, if we’re careful, I think we have some opportunities,” Mr. Hagel said.

The findings, though, remain open for interpretation, as they always do, even in documents meant to reflect the consensus of the intelligence community. When it comes to Iran, at odds with the United States on many fronts beyond the nuclear question, hawks remain.

“Those who are suspicious of diplomacy are well dug in in this administration,” said Kurt M. Campbell, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security.

John R. Bolton, the former ambassador to the United Nations, who recently left the administration and began to criticize it, sounded very much like Mr. Hadley on Monday, saying the assessment underscored the need for American toughness. He said Iran’s intentions would always remain a concern as long as it continued to enrich uranium.

“The decision to weaponize and at what point is a judgment in the hands of the Iranians,” he said. He added that the finding that Iran halted a weapons program could just mean that it was better hidden now.