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Yes, let’s not forget that a nation’s
military is also supposed to be about peace keeping, not war making. The operating budget for this institute
was so small it’s closing was politics, not economics. Peacekeeping
Institute to Stay Open REUTERS, Tuesday, July 8, 2003;
Page A12 @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23540-2003Jul7.html?nav=hptoc_n With guerrilla-style
attacks escalating against U.S. occupying forces in Iraq, the Pentagon said
yesterday it has put off plans to close the military's only institution devoted
to the study of peacekeeping. The
Pentagon had decided to shut the Peacekeeping Institute at the U.S. Army War
College in Carlisle, Pa., on Oct. 1 as part of a money-saving initiative. The move was viewed as
a sign of the Bush administration's lack of interest in peacekeeping duties and
drew widespread criticism because of the war in Iraq and the intensifying
resistance to the U.S. occupation. "We've put on
hold the earlier decision to close the Peacekeeping Institute, and we're in the
process of reviewing its charter based on the operational environment right
now," Pentagon spokeswoman Alison Bettencourt said. "Obviously, there's Iraq. We also
have forces in Afghanistan and the Balkans," she added. "Stability and support operations are increasingly
important." Expect to see more about this in the news,
given that the Energy Policy 2003 is making it’s way through both houses of
Congress, stealthily. - KWC Court Rejects Bid to
Stop Cheney Lawsuit
By Pete Yost,
Associated Press Writer, Tuesday, July 8, 2003; 11:40 AM @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26381-2003Jul8.html A federal appeals
court Tuesday rejected the Bush administration's bid to stop a lawsuit that
seeks to delve into the energy industry's ties to Vice President Dick Cheney's
energy task force. In a 2-1 ruling, the
court said administration officials must turn over some information about the
task force or list specific documents that they intend to withhold from the
proceedings. The administration
argues that the lawsuit by the Sierra Club and a conservative group, Judicial
Watch, is an unwarranted intrusion into the internal deliberations of the
executive branch of government.
But Cheney and administration officials "have not satisfied the
heavy burden" required for the appeals court to get involved in the case,
wrote Appeals Court Judge David Tatel. Bush administration
officials have not even produced a log of documents they want to keep
confidential, the appeals court said. Appeals judges David
Tatel and Harry Edwards rejected the administration's effort to stop the case.
Judge A. Raymond Randolph dissented, declaring that "for the judiciary to
permit this sort of discovery" into the actions of the executive branch
"strikes me as a violation of the separation of powers." Tatel said that if the administration is so concerned about
unwarranted intrusion, it can "invoke executive or any other
privilege" in an attempt to keep the material out of the public domain. Federal agencies have
disclosed 39,000 pages of internal documents related to the work of Cheney's
energy task force, material which so far has yielded nothing. The energy plan adopted four months
after President Bush took office favored opening more public lands to oil and
gas drilling and proposed a wide range of other steps supported by industry. |
