Since the Iran NIE was released, conservatives have desperately tried to discredit it. Former Vice President Cheney aide David Wurmser questioned “how much it can really be banked on.” John Bolton called for congressional investigations into the “politicized” intelligence community. Some conservatives in Congress are following these calls, proposing a “second look” into the NIE in the form of a commission “based on similar review panels convened in the mid-1970s to reconsider the intelligence agencies’ analysis of the Soviet Union.” “We just see politics injected into this,” claimed Sen. John Ensign’s (R-NV) office.

JERUSALEM - Israel's public security minister warned Saturday that a U.S. intelligence report that said Iran is no longer developing nuclear arms could lead to a regional war that would threaten the Jewish state. In his remarks — Israel's harshest criticism yet of the U.S. report — Avi Dichter said the assessment also cast doubt on American intelligence in general, including information about Palestinian security forces' crackdown on militant groups. The Palestinian action is required as part of a U.S.-backed renewal of peace talks with Israel this month. Dichter cautioned that a refusal to recognize Iran's intentions to build weapons of mass destruction could lead to armed conflict in the Middle East. Dichter didn't elaborate on the potential scenario but seemed to imply that a world that let its guard down regarding Iran would be more vulnerable to attack by the Islamic regime. Read more...

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Photo Essay: Sea Change

Julia Whitty and Robert Knoth Reportage by Getty Images September/October 2007 Issue

Get used to it: real estate falling into the sea. And not just beach houses and seaside time-shares. Think towns and cities. These images of Shishmaref village on Alaska's remote west coast reveal the tip of a terrain melting so fast it will carry whole cultures away with it—rich and poor, polluters and nonpolluters, all vulnerable to the great leveler, the ocean. You think South Pacific island nations and remote Arctic outposts will be the only victims? Wrong. Because no matter what we do on the carbon emissions front in the coming decades, the world ocean is forecast to warm and rise for the next millennium or more. Pictures like these will soon be commonplace

In Shishmaref, calamity has already arrived. The village of 600 Inupiaq lies on the fragile barrier island of Sarichef, where sea ice forms later each year, exposing the land to autumn storms that carve away 50 feet or more of shoreline a season. Two houses have slipped into the sea; 18 others have been moved back from the encroaching ocean; others buckle from the melting permafrost. Ten million dollars has been spent on seawalls, to no avail. Residents have concluded permanent resettlement is their only option. But considering America has yet to seriously tackle New Orleans' sea-level problems, no one on this distant edge of the Chukchi Sea imagines the $180 million needed to relocate Shishmaref will be easy to come by. And Shishmaref is not alone. A 2004 Government Accountability Office report found that of Alaska's 213 Native villages, 184 are battling floods and erosion, while another assessment foresees that in the coming decades, Alaska will require $6.1 billion to repair global warming's domino effect of fallen bridges, burst sewer pipes, and disintegrating roads. Worldwide, the situation is more dire, more expensive: Oxfam suggests the United States owes $22 billion, or 44 percent—our polluting share—of the $50 billion needed each year for poor nations to adapt to climate change.

 

 

 

 

Pelosi: Bush "must come to Congress" before attacking Iran

David Edwards and Greg Wasserstrom
Published: Sunday October 14, 2007

In an interview on ABC's This Week, Speaker Pelosi tells George Stephanopoulos that President Bush must get the approval of Congress before proceeding with an attack on Iran.

Just this week, the Senate passed a non-binding resolution designating Iran's Republican Guard as a terrorist organization in a move many observers fear will give President Bush the authority he needs to attack Iran. Pelosi disagrees, and doesn't plan on bringing up such a measure in the house.

"We don't believe that any of the authority the President has would allow him to go in without an act of Congress," she said, adding that the War Powers Act of the 1970s gives any president the power to retaliate against a country that has attacked the US. "But short of that," Pelosi said, "he must come to the Congress."

When asked about the Senate vote, Pelosi noted that it is unprecendented to declare a piece of another country's military a terrorist organization. She said, "Whatever Iran's impact is on our troops in Iraq should be dealt with in Iraq."

Reuters has the full story