Lesson of Defeat: Obama Comes Out Punching

CHICAGO — Senator Barack Obama woke up on Wednesday talking of his delegate lead and of taking the fight to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. But after defeats in two of the most populous states, he also sounded like a chastened candidate in search of his lost moment.

Mr. Obama once again failed to administer an electoral coup de grâce, and so allowed a tenacious rival to elude his grasp. Now, after appearing nearly invincible just last week, he faces questions about his toughness and vulnerabilities — never mind seven weeks of tramping across Pennsylvania, the site of the next big primary showdown. His goal is to prove he can win states vital to a Democratic victory in November.

In Ohio and Texas, he drew vast and adoring crowds, yet he came up short on primary day, just as he did in New Hampshire in early January. Mrs. Clinton’s attack on his readiness to serve as commander in chief seemed to resonate with some Texas voters.

In Ohio, Mr. Obama failed to make much headway with voters who live paycheck to paycheck and feel the economic walls closing in, a troublesome sign as he heads to Pennsylvania.

But his challenge now is about more than demographics. He must reassure supporters, and party leaders who had started to rally to his side, that he can absorb the lessons of Tuesday’s defeats. And he faces a challenge of rebounding as quickly as he did from his loss in New Hampshire.

Flying from Texas back home to Chicago on Wednesday morning, Mr. Obama delivered the message that he intended to counterpunch forcefully.

His campaign aides on Wednesday urged Mrs. Clinton to release her tax returns from 2006, as well as her papers from her years as first lady, which Mr. Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, described as “secreted in the Clinton library.”

“She’s made the argument that she’s thoroughly vetted, in contrast to me,” Mr. Obama said to reporters aboard his campaign plane. “I think it’s important to examine that argument.”

Over the last year, though, Mr. Obama has struggled to deliver that examination. He picks up the cudgel, and then sets it down. The problem is that Mr. Obama has built a campaign persona as the man of hope, a young candidate with oratorical skills who promises to build bridges across the ideological divide.

If he indulges his inner Chicago pol, formed in a city where politics is conducted with crowbars, he risks taking the shine off. But his advisers say he has little choice.

Mr. Obama took aim on Wednesday at Mrs. Clinton’s claim that she is a seasoned hand in foreign policy. “What exactly is this foreign experience that she’s claiming?” he said. “I know she talks about visiting 80 countries. It is not clear. Was she negotiating treaties or agreements or was she handling crises during this period of time?

“My sense is the answer’s no.”

Mr. Obama, finally, has tactical worries of his own. He won in states like Missouri by running up large margins in cities and suburbs. But in Ohio, he appeared outorganized.

Gov. Ted Strickland, who endorsed Mrs. Clinton, advised her to encircle the cities. Mr. Strickland led her deep into his base in the hills of Appalachia in southern Ohio; Bill Clinton also passed through the region when he was president. Mrs. Clinton ran up big margins in those rural counties.

Mr. Obama retains significant advantages, including his lead among pledged delegates and a record-setting fund-raising operation. And he bridled at questions on Wednesday about his difficulties attracting working-class and middle-class support, noting his progress in that regard.

“I don’t buy into this demographic argument,” Mr. Obama said. “In Missouri, Wisconsin, Virginia and many of these states, we’ve won the white vote and the blue-collar voters. I think it is very important not to somehow focus on a handful of states because the Clintons say that those states are important and the other states are unimportant.”

His advisers pointed out that the Clinton campaign had built up 20-point leads in the polls in Ohio and Texas just two weeks ago and that Mrs. Clinton’s tough tactics and negative advertisements forced the Obama campaign upon the shoals.

But Mr. Obama is hardly a by-the-bootstraps insurgent. He had a decided financial advantage in both states, outspending the Clinton campaign more than two to one, and he could count on the support of powerful unions and the endorsement of a string of big-city mayors.

“I’ll tell you what I would do now,” said Mayor Michael B. Coleman of Columbus, Ohio, who had endorsed Mr. Obama. “I would start to draw contrasts with her. I don’t think Obama has focused on that, and there are opportunities to be explored there.”

Mr. Obama seems likely to take a tougher stance toward Mrs. Clinton, if only because he saw how well such tactics worked against him. When the Clinton campaign attacked on multiple fronts last week, he sometimes sounded defensive, occasionally talking at his audiences rather than with them.

“There’s no magic bullet that hurt him; it was a series of bullets,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic consultant. “She reduced his charisma and forced voters back to reality.”

For now, Mr. Obama and his advisers are huddled in Chicago, plotting strategy.

Asked on the plane whether he and Mrs. Clinton might make a good ticket, he smiled. “It’s very premature,” he said, “to start talking about a joint ticket.”

McCain wins Republican nomination

John McCain has won the Republican party's nomination to run for US president with projected poll wins in Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island and Texas.
His closest rival, Mike Huckabee, has dropped out of the race and
His closest rival, Mike Huckabee, has dropped out of the race and pledged to support Mr McCain's candidacy.

The Democratic contest remains on a knife-edge, with Hillary Clinton projected to win Ohio and Rhode Island.

Barack Obama is projected to win in Vermont, while in the Texas Democratic poll the result is too close to call.

Mrs Clinton's projected wins in Rhode Island and Ohio appear to have ended Mr Obama's month-long winning streak.

Mr McCain's victories in all four states take him over the threshold of 1,191 delegates needed to claim the candidacy at the party's national convention in September.


Stand up with me, my friends, stand up and fight for America - for her strength, her ideals, and her future
John McCain


The result represents a remarkable comeback after his campaign was all but written off following setbacks last summer.
Speaking to supporters in Dallas, Texas, he said the most important part of the campaign now lay ahead, in which he must "make a respectful, determined and convincing case to the American people" to pick him over the Democratic candidate in November.

Mr McCain went on to outline the challenges facing the nation, including the war in Iraq and the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taleban.

He also pledged a campaign that avoided "false promises", and appealed for voters to "stand up and fight for America, for her strength, her ideals and her future".


Mrs Clinton insists she can go all the way to the White House
Clinton's campaign ad

He will go to the White House on Wednesday for lunch with George W Bush, when he is expected to receive the president's endorsement.

Conceding the race at a rally in Irving, Texas, Mr Huckabee said: "It's now important that we turn our attention not to what could have been or what we wanted to have been but what now must be, and that is a united party."

Both Democratic candidates called Mr McCain to congratulate him on sealing the Republican nomination.

For the Democrats, a total of 370 delegates to the nominating party convention in August were at stake in Tuesday's four races.

The race was still too close to call in Texas, the day's biggest prize with 228 delegates up for grabs, including 67 in caucuses held after the primary vote.

Mr Obama had 1,386 delegates to Mrs Clinton's 1,276 going into Tuesday's contests, the AP calculated. A total of 2,025 is needed to secure the Democratic Party's nomination.

'Coming back'

Because delegates are divided proportionally, Mrs Clinton needs landslide victories on Tuesday and beyond to catch up with her rival.


She told cheering crowds in Columbus, Ohio, that she was determined to stay in the race and looked forward to continuing the debate with Mr Obama "in the weeks ahead".

"For everyone here in Ohio and across America who has ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you," she said.

Mrs Clinton also pointed to Ohio's status as a state which had picked the winning presidential nominee in every contest in recent history.

"You know what they say - as Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Well, this nation's coming back and so is this campaign."

Between the nationwide Super Tuesday contests on 5 February and the 4 March polls, Mr Obama won 11 contests in succession, giving him a lead over Mrs Clinton in the delegate count.

Addressing supporters in San Antonio, Texas, Mr Obama congratulated Mrs Clinton on running a "hard-fought race" but pointed out that he still held the advantage.

"No matter what happens tonight, we have nearly the same delegate lead as we did this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination," he said.

Mr Obama also used his speech to attack Mr McCain's policies on Iraq, warning that he would lead the country on the same course as Mr Bush had followed.

Mr Obama added that the result from Texas might not be known until Wednesday. He spent twice as much as Mrs Clinton on TV adverts in the state, including some in Spanish.

According to exit polls for the Associated Press news agency, Hispanics cast nearly a third of the election day votes in Texas - up from a quarter in 2004. In previous contests this year, they have favoured Mrs Clinton.

African-American voters - who have heavily supported Mr Obama - accounted for about 20% of the votes cast in Texas, the AP said, about the same as four years ago.

The economy was the most important issue for Democratic voters in all four states, especially Ohio, according to exit polls.

Those polls also suggested Mrs Clinton was doing well among white, blue-collar and older voters in Ohio, which may indicate she has halted Mr Obama's advance into those groups, her core base until recent contests.

Ahead of the day's voting, the New York senator and former first lady played down suggestions she was facing a make-or-break moment.

The BBC's Kevin Connolly, in Ohio's state capital, Columbus, says the struggle between the two senators remains fierce and close, and it is far from certain that America will get the clear outcome from these latest battles that it craves.

McCain Clinches Race as Foe Concedes; Democrats Battle Over 2 Crucial States

Senator John McCain, a one-time insurgent whose campaign was all but dead seven months ago, locked up the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday night after he defeated former Gov. Mike Huckabee in the Texas and Ohio Republican primary and Mr. Huckabee conceded the race to Mr. McCain.

Although Mr. McCain had been far ahead in the delegate count and been bestowed with the unofficial title of “likely Republican nominee” since his string of victories on Feb. 5, Tuesday’s results put him within reach of the 1,191 delegates he needs for the nomination. Mr. McCain also won the Vermont and Rhode Island primaries.

“I am very grateful and pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a great sense of responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States,” Mr. McCain said. He said this was “an accomplishment that once seemed to more than a few doubters unlikely.”

In a sign that his party is now officially rallying around him, Mr. McCain will travel to the White House on Wednesday morning for a formal endorsement by President Bush, a Republican official said Tuesday night.

Mr. Huckabee said he called Mr. McCain to concede and offer his support.

“It looks pretty apparent tonight that he will in fact achieve 1,191 delegates to become the nominee for our party,” Mr. Huckabee said. “I extended him not only my congratulations, but my commitment to him and to the party to do everything possible to unite our party, but more importantly to unite our country so we can be the best nation we can be.”

Mr. Huckabee added, “We’ll be working on everything we can to help Senator McCain.”

Mr. McCain praised Mr. Huckabee as “a great and fine and decent American.”

The Associated Press and television networks projected that Mr. McCain won enough delegates to clinch the nomination, but The New York Times has him still short of the mark.

Tuesday’s results cleared the way for Mr. McCain to move more aggressively forward with fund-raising, building a national campaign operation and positioning himself as a general election candidate — at a time when the Democrats were fighting among themselves .

Mr. McCain’s advisers said he had a steady schedule of fund-raising through March, in New York, Palm Beach, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Denver.

Mr. McCain also has a weeklong foreign trip planned in March as part of his Senate business, but he will use it to try to promote his foreign policy credentials to voters.

The advisers said the official kick-off of the McCain campaign would be the first week of April, when Mr. McCain is planning to go on what his campaign is a calling a national “bio tour” to reintroduce himself to the country in places that have been important parts of his life: Annapolis, for example, where he graduated from the United States Naval Academy, and Naval Air Station Meridian in Mississippi, where McCain Field is named after Mr. McCain’s grandfather.

Mr. McCain spent the day campaigning across Texas, from a Mexican bakery in San Antonio to a Western-themed saloon in Houston that was heavily decorated with taxidermy, saddles and Navajo rugs to a luxury hotel ballroom in Dallas.

At every step of the way, he made clear that he hoped to clinch the nomination, but often alluded to his superstition about making predictions even touching the wood on the table in front of him during a ride through Dallas aboard his campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, when he mentioned the possibility of sewing up the Republican nomination.

Along the way he held town hall meetings — fielding questions on everything from energy policy and immigration to autism — and spoke in stark terms about the dangers in the world today, from the heightened tensions between Venezuela and Colombia to the rocket attacks into Israel that Hamas is launching from Gaza.

And he continued to chide the Democratic candidates, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, on the North America Free Trade Agreement, implying that they were harsher in their criticism of Nafta while they campaigned in Ohio, with its struggling industrial sector, than they were while campaigning in Texas, which has benefited from trade with Mexico.

“I didn’t go to Ohio and say anything that I’m not saying here in the state of Texas,” Mr. McCain said in San Antonio. “I support Nafta, I support free trade. I support it in Ohio, I support it in Texas, I support it all over the country.”

At one point during an appearance at a Houston saloon called Goode’s Armadillo Palace (where a sign near the giant armadillo sculpture outside admonished “Gentlemen Will Behave, Others Must”) he came to the defense of Mrs. Clinton and her husband Bill.

It happened a little while after Cindy McCain, in introductory remarks, said that she thought her husband was the best prepared candidate to field an emergency phone call at the White House at 3 a.m. — implicitly drawing a contrast with Mrs. Clinton, who ran an ad suggesting that she was t best prepared for such a call.

When the event was thrown open to questions on a wide range of topics, a man in the audience took the microphone to offer his own observations. “I just wanted to observe, when you mentioned the 3 o’clock phone call, that unlike other candidates in the race, if Cindy answers the phone she won’t be wondering where her husband is,” the man said, to widespread laughter and cheers.

But Mr. McCain quieted the crowd when he immediately moved to disassociate himself from the joke. “Please let me say, sir, that Americans want us to have a respectful campaign,” he said, to applause. “I respect Senator Clinton, I respect Senator Obama, and I don’t associate myself, even though it was meant in humor.”

When Mr. McCain landed in Dallas, he was asked aboard his bus what role his age might play in the general election; should he win the race, at 71, he would be the oldest candidate elected to a first term as president. He responded by pointing to his experience and judgment, and then by seeming to question Mr. Obama’s youth by highlighting his statement from a debate last year that he would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran and Cuba without preconditions.

“I think my major theme of this campaign is that I have the judgment to lead,” Mr. McCain said. “And you gain that ability and capability with years of experience, knowledge, background and being engaged.”

He did not name Mr. Obama, but he went on to say: “I would never announce that I was going to sit down with the president of Iran, who would then walk out of the meeting and then perhaps articulate his country’s policy of the extermination of the state of Israel. I would never sit down without preconditions with Raul Castro, who was the executioner and the jailer for thousands of political prisoners in Cuba, and thereby giving him more legitimacy. Those kinds of things, frankly, are a product of inexperience.”

Clinton, Obama come charging into crucial day

BEAUMONT, Texas - Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, heading into a set of primaries today that could ignite a Clinton comeback or settle an Obama nomination, campaigned furiously across the Lone Star State yesterday in what could be the climactic battle of the Democratic primary season.
With a steely resolve and little sleep, Clinton began her campaign day in Toledo, Ohio, bringing predawn doughnuts and a promise of economic relief to shift workers at a Chrysler plant and finishing with a town hall meeting in Austin last night.
Obama focused on Texas, racing from San Antonio to Carrollton and then Houston. In recent days, Obama has largely traded his trademark giant rallies for more intimate, policy-focused gatherings, including ones yesterday on veterans' issues and college affordability. Last night, Obama hosted a rally in Houston with his wife, Michelle.
With new polls out yesterday that suggested she had expanded her narrow lead in Ohio and is deadlocked with Obama in Texas, Clinton dismissed questions about whether she would give up her quest for the nomination if she does not win both states, despite suggestions from some of her most prominent supporters that she should consider withdrawing if that happens.
"I'm just getting warmed up," Clinton told reporters yesterday, saying she was planning on pushing ahead to the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania.
Under heavy pressure from Democrats in both camps to score wins today, the Clinton campaign stepped up its attacks on Obama yesterday, shifting from criticism of what it calls his lack of substance to an assault on his character and putting Obama on the defensive hours ahead of the voting.
The New York senator pointed to a memo - written by an official in Canada's consulate in Chicago after a meeting there last month - indicating that Obama's chief economic adviser told Canadian government officials that Obama's criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement was directed at primary voters in Ohio and other states and did not represent his real position. Obama's campaign had previously denied such conversations took place.
"That's the kind of difference between talk and action that I've been pointing out in this campaign," Clinton told reporters while campaigning in Ohio.
Obama said his campaign never gave Canada back-channel assurances. The Obama adviser, Austan Goolsbee, disputed the account of his remarks. The Canadian embassy later issued a statement that the memo, obtained by the Associated Press, did not intend "to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA."
Obama also contended that until she began running for president, Clinton supported NAFTA, which was approved during her husband's administration.
The Clinton campaign also attacked Obama for his relationship with Chicago businessman Tony Rezko, a friend and fund-raiser whose trial on federal corruption charges began yesterday. Obama has been questioned about a deal in which he purchased his home in Chicago at the same time Rezko's wife bought a neighboring lot.
Clinton's campaign has called on Obama to reveal more information about his relationship with Rezko, including any campaign contributions Rezko helped collect for Obama. The Illinois senator is not accused of wrongdoing in the case, in which Rezko is charged with using campaign money to buy political influence and launch a multimillion-dollar scheme to shake down companies seeking government contracts.
Obama said yesterday that Rezko's problems are not his. "These charges are completely unrelated to me, and nobody disputes that," Obama told reporters. "There's no dispute that he raised money for us, and there's no dispute that we've tried to get rid of it."
While Obama and his supporters sought to dismiss the attacks as coming from a desperate campaign anxious to discredit him, Clinton continued to present herself as the most qualified candidate to run the country.
"President Bush is just going to leave this big mess," Clinton told a labor-heavy group in Toledo early in the day. "Who would you hire for this job?"
Clinton tried to tailor her messages to the electorates in Ohio and Texas, focusing on jobs in Ohio, which has lost more than 200,000 nonfarm jobs since 2000, and on national security in Texas, which has had 366 military deaths in the Iraq war, the second-most of any state. Clinton continued to press the case that she is prepared to be commander-in-chief - and Obama is not - with a new TV ad in Texas that highlighted his acknowledgment that he had not held an oversight hearing on the Afghanistan conflict as chairman of a Senate subcommittee because he has been running for president.
Obama, meanwhile, aired two-minute TV ads across Ohio and Texas last night in which, speaking directly to voters, he pledged to solve problems, end partisan divisions, and "carry your voices to the White House" to transform the country.
Clinton's senior staff said they were confident of her chances today, but contended that it is Obama - who has won the last 11 contests - who needs to do well to prove to the party that Democratic voters are not feeling "buyer's remorse."
Still, there were signs of anxiety in the Clinton campaign. Her recent rallies have been smaller than those in earlier contests, and have drawn far fewer people than Obama attracted in the same cities.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who has endorsed Clinton, yesterday became the latest Democrat to suggest she might need to drop out if she does not do well today. "Let's see how Tuesday plays out, and then let's start thinking about how we're going to get behind a candidate," Whitehouse told Providence radio station WPRO.
Clinton has natural constituencies in both Texas and Ohio, with heavy support among Latinos and record turnout expected in the Lone Star State and from blue-collar workers in Ohio. But Clinton's campaign maintained yesterday that it is Obama who starts out with an advantage in those states, where he has outspent Clinton approximately two-to-one.
Voters in Rhode Island and Vermont also go to the polls today, with a total of 370 delegates at stake in the four states and with Obama holding a 109-delegate lead, according to an Associated Press tally.
Obama said he had won too many states for his success to be easily dismissed.
"I would think at this point, the question is no longer, is it a big enough state, or is it a state with too many black people, or is it a state that's in the Midwest or is a caucus state," he told reporters. "We've won states and we've won delegates."
But Obama hastened to add that he was taking nothing for granted. "Senator Clinton is running a tenacious campaign," he said. "We know that this has been an extraordinary election and continues to be."

Iranian president arrives in Iraq

A military band plays as Iraq's president greets Ahmadinejad warmly. Security is tight, but U.S. troops are absent.

12:09 AM PST, March 2, 2008BAGHDAD — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad strode up a red carpet and into the Iraqi presidential compound today for the start of a historic visit to Iraq, where the United States accuses Iran of meddling in violence.Ahmadinejad is the first Iranian leader to visit Iraq since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, but there was no sign of lingering animosity during today's lavish arrival. Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, smiled broadly as he guided his guest from a dark sedan into his compound in Baghdad's Karada district.In a striking departure from other high-profile visitors to Iraq, Ahmadinejad did not use a helicopter to come into the center of the city from the airport. Instead, his convoy used the airport road, once notorious for bombs and other attacks and heavily patrolled by U.S. forces. He also did not head into the heavily protected Green Zone, going instead to Talabani's home utside the fortified area.A military band played rousing anthems as Ahmadinejad shook countless hands on his way into the building. Amid the stern-looking security men who surrounded the entourage, there was a notable omission: U.S. troops, who usually form the bulk of protection forces for high-profile guests in Iraq.This time, the U.S. military made clear it would not be involved in protecting the Iranian president, who denies White House claims that his country has provided lethal bombs as well as training and financing to Shiite militias in Iraq.Iraq's government has also accused Iran of fomenting violence here and has indicated that the topic will be up for discussion during Ahmadinejad's two-day visit."This should be presented at the table and discussed and negotiated," the Iraqi government spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, said recently when asked what would be on the agenda. "This is something that worries us in Iraq. We need to find a way to stop all this," he said, referring to alleged arms smuggling over the Iranian border.Talabani, who visited Tehran in June, will host Ahmadinejad. The Iraqi president's ties to Iran stretch back to the 1980s, when he and other Kurds as well as Iraqi Shiite Muslim political parties and militias sought refuge there and fought alongside Iranian forces against Saddam Hussein's army.Since Hussein's ouster five years ago, trade between the two countries has reached about $8 billion a year, and Iran recently announced a $1 billion loan to Iraq.

Execution of 'Chemical Ali' approved

12:32 AM PST, February 29, 2008BAGHDAD — Iraq's three-member Presidency Council has approved the execution of Ali Hassan Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein known as "Chemical Ali," said a high-ranking Iraqi government official today who was not authorized to speak on the subject.The official said there was no date set for the hanging, which must be carried out within 30 days. He also said the Presidency Council had agreed only to the execution of Majid, not two codefendants also convicted in June of genocide and other crimes.Majid's death penalty, and that of the others, had been held up because the council was divided over how it might affect national reconciliation. The council is composed of a Shiite, a Sunni and a Kurd.Supporters of Majid and his codefendants had argued they were merely carrying out Hussein's orders when they took part in the gassing of tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s.The U.S. has held Majid but refused to hand him over until the council reached a decision on whether he would be hanged or put in prison.It was not immediately clear if he had been handed over yet to Iraqi authorities.The decision to hang him could be seen as another setback in reconciliation efforts in Iraq, where Kurdish distrust toward the Shiite-led government is high.Earlier this week, the Presidency Council also failed to approve a law seen as crucial to reconciliation, which would have established powers of provinces and laid the groundwork for provincial elections. And Iraq's divided parliament has yet to approve other major legislation that U.S. and Iraqi officials say would accelerate reconciliation among the country's ethnic and sectarian groups.

Missile Attack, Possibly by NATO, Kills 8 in Pakistan

By ISMAIL KHAN
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Eight suspected Islamic militants, including four men of Middle Eastern origin and two from Central Asia, were killed early Thursday in a triple missile attack on a house used as a training facility in Pakistan’s tribal areas, a security official and residents said.
The missiles appeared to have been launched from territory controlled by NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan, the second deadly aerial strike in a month. Residents said three other occupants of the house were wounded in the strike, in the village of Kalosha in South Waziristan, one of the most restive tribal regions.
The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of his job, said the dead had belonged to a little-known group affiliated with Al Qaeda, working under the name Abu Hamza.
Local residents said they had heard three loud explosions about 2 a.m. that destroyed the house. They said the three wounded occupants were from Turkmenistan.
They also said the house had belonged to Shero Wazir, an Ahmadzai Wazir tribesman who had rented it to an unidentified man of Arab nationality. They said they thought the launching site might have been an American NATO base in Machi Dat, just across the border in Afghanistan.
NATO officials in Afghanistan said they had no information about the attack. But this would not be the first time American-led NATO forces had launched missiles aimed at Qaeda and Taliban targets on the Pakistan side.
A senior Qaeda commander, Abu Laith al-Libi, was reportedly killed by a Predator missile in Mirali, North Waziristan, on Jan. 29. The Pakistan government has yet to officially confirm his death.
An official of the political administration of the tribal areas confirmed eight deaths in the Thursday attack, but did not identify any victims by name. He said four Arabs, two Turkmens and two Pakistani militants from Punjab Province had been killed, but others said it was difficult to know precisely who died. The security official said the bodies were charred beyond recognition. They were buried at a graveyard in Kalosha. He said the destroyed house had been used as a training facility.
A spokesman for Maulvi Nazir, a local militant commander, denied that Arabs or Turkmens were killed in the attack, asserting instead that Afghans had died.
“They were common Afghans and have been living in the area for the last few years,” the spokesman said.

Obama's Fate in Texas

AUSTIN, Texas -- Sen. Barack Obama's pivotal victories last month in Iowa and South Carolina over Sen. Hillary Clinton were engineered by professional staffers who worked those states for nearly a year. In Texas, the story has been a lot different.
His organization in the Lone Star State, which holds its potentially decisive presidential primary on Tuesday, has been "more like a baling wire and duct tape thing," says Mitch Stewart, who is running the campaign here. Mr. Stewart and the first dozen paid Obama staffers touched down in this capital city less than three weeks ago.
The uncharacteristic late start has left the Illinois senator relying to an unusual degree on the groundwork of volunteers such as Ian Davis. The 29-year-old Austin community organizer has been laboring for months with no guidance at all from Obama headquarters. When Sen. Obama's team finally arrived, Mr. Davis handed over laundry baskets stuffed with 20,000 handwritten names of potential volunteers, which Mr. Davis had gathered on his own.
"At the end of the day," Mr. Stewart says, it will be people like Ian Davis "who win this thing."
Early on in the national campaign, Obama headquarters saw no good reason to devote substantial resources to Texas. Few experts expected the showdown between Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton to climax here. Texas is a deeply Republican state, and hasn't played a deciding role in a Democratic nominating contest in 20 years.
Tuesday's primaries in Texas and Ohio now loom large for Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama. Former President Bill Clinton has said that his wife needs to take both states to stay alive in the nominating race. Recent polls show that Sen. Clinton retains a lead in Ohio, although it has diminished. But in Texas, her once-large lead has evaporated, leaving her in a dead heat.
Sen. Clinton's Texas strategy relies on a campaign formula frequently used by front-runners -- one that she has used in other states. Over the past year, she has amassed a whopping 130 endorsements from local politicians. Many of them have pledged their own organizations to her cause. The tally for Sen. Obama numbers only a few dozen.
One of Sen. Clinton's most prominent supporters in Texas, Henry Cisneros, the former secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, says her campaign is relying on more than just endorsements. "We've got a strong street organization," he says, "I don't think she's going to get beat at the street level."
Clinton allies say they are skeptical that Sen. Obama can organize a grass-roots campaign in such a short period of time. "Can Texas be organized? Sure it can," says state Sen. Carlos Uresti, a backer of Sen. Clinton. His sprawling, Latino-heavy district encompasses 55,000 square miles of parched land between San Antonio and El Paso and is considered a stronghold for the former first lady. "We did the block-walking, went to the PTA meetings, did the weddings," he says. "But I had four months to do it. Obama has three weeks. Where would you even start?"
For the Obama campaign, supporters like Mr. Davis could be the answer. He grew up in Austin canvassing with his parents for various Democratic candidates, and decided he wanted to do similar work as a career. He currently works as an organizer for the Texas Freedom Network, a nine-man nonprofit that is akin to a small-time American Civil Liberties Union, earning him enough to rent an apartment from his parents.
In 2002, Mr. Davis took a paying job with the failed gubernatorial campaign of Tony Sanchez -- a campaign Mr. Davis says relied heavily on "paid volunteers," since not enough real volunteers materialized. In 2004, he signed on with Howard Dean's presidential campaign, organizing a 3,000-person rally in Austin on the candidate's behalf. Although he is a Democrat, in 2006 he "went off the reservation," he says, to work for fringe independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, whose platform included a pledge to work for "the de-wussification of Texas."
For the past year, Mr. Davis has been devoting all of his spare time to the Obama campaign. He has organized neighborhood canvasses, literature drops and "visibility campaigns," where volunteers stand on street corners and shake signs at motorists. "Sometimes a lot of people come out, and sometimes it's just the hard core," Mr. Davis says.
He found his way to the campaign in a roundabout manner. In late 2006, he decided with two friends to start a book club, mainly, he says, "as an excuse to drink beer" and to one-up his wife, who wouldn't let him join her own group. Sen. Obama came to Austin that year to flog his book, "The Audacity of Hope," several months before he declared himself a presidential candidate. Although Mr. Davis couldn't get in to hear him, he leafleted the large crowd with solicitations to join his book club. Thirty-five people showed up for the first meeting at an Austin watering hole. Within a month, attendance had swelled to 200, he says.
Mr. Davis says he initially was attracted to Sen. Obama by his writings about working as a community organizer. As speculation swirled about a White House run, Mr. Davis started a blog, TexansForObama.com. By the time Sen. Obama announced his run last February, Mr. Davis's blog had received offers from 5,000 potential volunteers. Shortly thereafter, when Sen. Obama came to Austin for a rally, 20,000 people showed up, many of them recruited by Mr. Davis. He collected as many names as he could, filing them in the laundry baskets.
As Sen. Obama campaigned in early primaries, Mr. Davis's book club got more and more political. Without much encouragement or oversight from the official campaign, it grew, as did similar groups in other cities. Mr. Davis and other volunteer coordinators began holding weekly meetings to plan leafleting, door-knocking and the like.
A Powerful Tool
As the voting in Iowa and New Hampshire approached, Mr. Davis and thousands of other Texans took advantage of a powerful tool available on the Obama campaign's national Web site, MyBarackObama.com. The system, developed in-house and modeled after an effort created in 2004 by the liberal political action group MoveOn.org, gives campaign volunteers unsupervised access to names and phones numbers of potential supporters nationwide, which campaigns usually treat as proprietary information.
The idea is to create a virtual national phone bank. Volunteers pick states they want to call. They can place calls from home, from a cellphone in a coffee shop, from anywhere they want. The campaign provides phone scripts tailored for particular states. The Texas script, for example, explains the intricacies of the state's Byzantine nominating process, which begins with an open primary, followed by an evening caucus. Mr. Davis called it "the Texas two-step," and now, so does the campaign.
The unusual system is expected to play to Sen. Obama's strengths. Minutes after the polls close, Texas Democrats will convene caucuses that, coupled with a state convention, will seat about 30% of the state's delegates; Sen. Obama has proved adept at organizing for such contests. Furthermore, delegate-heavy districts in Austin and Houston are viewed as Obama strongholds.
The Victory Grill
The Texas volunteers started the year dialing earlier-voting states such as Iowa and California. They staged laptop-and-cellphone sessions from the Victory Grill, a historic but crumbling music venue in eastern Austin. "It's a symbiotic relationship," Mr. Davis says of the tavern owners. "They give us a place to phone-bank, and we buy their beer."
Sen. Obama's Web site also tries to arrange targeted phone campaigns. On a recent night, the site was asking for three different kinds of callers: Spanish speakers to make calls to Latinos in Texas; women to call other women in Ohio and Rhode Island; and students to call students in Texas and Ohio.
The campaign ranks volunteers by the number of points they accrue for making calls, recognizing top workers by posting their names on the Web site. "It was developed internally by our geeks," says Luke Peterson, a former community organizer who oversees the project from Chicago. "It cuts all of the paper out of the system. It's a good base to get people involved." He says the system was responsible for 250,000 calls in a single day to California voters in advance of that state's Feb. 5 primary.
Sen. Clinton uses a similar system for her campaign, but doesn't make phone numbers available to volunteers. Instead, volunteers have to request access to the system, which automatically connects them to potential supporters.
Chris Hughes, a former Internet entrepreneur who now supervises some aspects of Sen. Obama's phone-banking program, says open access has benefits. "It's a really good way to keep people involved in the campaign after the election is over in their state," he says.
But there's also a downside: It potentially exposes the campaign to rogue operators. The Obama campaign has been forced to lock out some people who "weren't the best representatives of the campaign," says one campaign official.
Mr. Davis says he likes the system because it "turns the asylum over to the inmates."
But unsupervised volunteers, even well-meaning ones, sometimes can produce headaches for the home office. Several weeks before the paid Obama staffers arrived in Texas, two separate groups of organizers opened unauthorized offices in Houston. One of the groups invited the local Fox television affiliate to the grand opening. A camera caught a Cuban flag on the wall, festooned with the likeness of revolutionary leader Che Guevara. The footage made its way to the Internet, where, not surprisingly, it sparked ranting. (One blogger referred to Mr. Guevara as the "psychotic Marxist.")
The Obama campaign had to distance itself from the local effort. The woman who opened the office was so terrified by the outcry that she had a guard posted at her home. "She was crying on the phone to me," recalls one Obama staffer.
Although the campaign now has paid staffers on the ground, the man in charge, Mr. Stewart, says he has no plans to rein in the volunteers. Indeed, when the campaign opened its office in a Howard Johnson motel on the outskirts of Austin, it provided a cubicle where Mr. Davis and his volunteers could work. Using local donations, Mr. Davis has opened two satellite offices for the volunteers.
The payoff has been apparent. Mr. Davis organized a party at a local bar to watch a Democratic debate held recently in Austin. It drew more than 1,000 people.
"I feel like I'd been marching up the mountain, when all of a sudden, the F-16s come flying in," says Mr. Davis.

McCain and Obama tangle over Iraq pullout

TYLER, Texas (Reuters) - Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama faced off on Wednesday in a possible prelude to a U.S. presidential election battle, tangling over whether Iraq would be prey for al Qaeda if U.S. troops are withdrawn.
Democrat Hillary Clinton, who needs big wins in Texas and Ohio next Tuesday to salvage her struggling candidacy, declared herself optimistic about her chances following her final debate with Obama on Tuesday night in Cleveland.
"What keeps me optimistic is the success I've had thus far and what I think the prospects are for Tuesday. People have just been really rallying to my candidacy," she said on her campaign plane before an event in Zanesville, Ohio.
She received a new blow, however, when U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a leader of the American civil rights movement, switched his support from Clinton to Obama for his party's presidential nomination.
"Something is happening in America," the Georgia Democrat said in a statement explaining his shift. "The people are pressing for a new day in American politics and I think they see Sen. Barack Obama as a symbol of that change."
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared to end long-running speculation he was considering an independent bid for the presidency in an opinion piece in Thursday's New York Times, saying he may endorse someone else.
"I listened carefully to those who encouraged me to run, but I am not and will not be a candidate for president," wrote Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican.
"If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach - and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy - I'll join others in helping that candidate win the White House," he added.
Arizona Sen. McCain and Illinois Sen. Obama looked past Clinton and quarreled anew over the war in Iraq as it approaches its fifth anniversary in March.
At 71, McCain would be the oldest person elected to a first presidential term; Obama, at 46, would be one of the youngest.
The unpopular war is an important fault line in the campaign for the November presidential election, with Democrats advocating a quick U.S. troop withdrawal while McCain insists a pullout would amount to surrender and give Islamic extremists a victory.
McCain, who has linked his candidacy to a successful outcome in Iraq, attacked Obama's stance on the war at a town hall meeting in Texas as he seeks to wrap up the Republican presidential nomination.
Obama said during the debate with Clinton that once he withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq, if al Qaeda were to form a base there, "then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad."
"I have some news," McCain said. "Al Qaeda is in Iraq. It's called Al Qaeda in Iraq. My friends, if we left, they wouldn't be establishing a base, they'd be taking a country and I'm not going to allow that to happen."
CLINTON PUSHES ECONOMY
McCain was somewhat undermined by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, who told U.S. lawmakers Wednesday that Al Qaeda in Iraq had suffered major setbacks last year and although still "capable of mounting lethal attacks," the group had suffered hundreds of members killed or captured.
Obama hit back at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, saying McCain had joined President George W. Bush in supporting a war "that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged."
"I have some news for John McCain, and that is that there was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq," he said to cheers.
He mocked McCain for his oft-repeated remark that he will get al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden if he has to follow him to the "gates of hell."
"So far all he's done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq," Obama said.
Clinton was pushing economic themes in Ohio, a state that has lost 23 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 2000 and which the subprime mortgage crisis has hit hard, with foreclosures climbing 88 percent in 2007.
"The economy is the number one issue in the country and it's unbelievably important here in Ohio," she said. "We're sliding into a recession and the price of everything is going up at the same time."
Clinton, a New York senator who would be America's first woman president, has lost the last 11 state contests to Obama.
"What keeps me going is that I know I would be the best president. I know that I could handle the problems we have here at home and around the world. I have no doubt about that," she said.
In San Antonio, McCain sought to broaden his appeal among conservatives by picking up the endorsement of John Hagee, a pro-Israel evangelical leader. Hagee's apocalyptic writings have depicted Israel as a blood-soaked battleground that will see the return of Jesus Christ.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and John Whitesides in Ohio; Writing by Steve Holland; editing by David Wiessler and Stuart Grudgings)
(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online here
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No Country for Old Men

Jason Reitman, Academy Award nominee for directing Juno, and his wife, Michele Lee, pose at a luncheon for Canadian nominees on Friday in Los Angeles.

Dark horse Juno heads into Oscar race

The buzz is big in Hollywood after quirky teen comedy Juno captured three Independent Spirit Awards the day before Sunday's Oscars, in which it has nominations in four major categories: best film, actress, original screenplay and directing for Jason Reitman.
The Hollywood press has already dubbed Juno the "little film that could" — made for roughly $25 million US, it has grabbed more than $100 million at the box office worldwide.

That makes Juno the highest-grossing film in its Oscar category, topping the likes of other best-film contenders No Country for Old Men, legal thriller Michael Clayton, wartime romance Atonement and the oil epic There Will Be Blood.
While Halifax's Ellen Page captured a best actress Spirit Award on Saturday, she is up against formidable competition for the Oscar: Julie Christie (Away From Her), Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Laura Linney (The Savages) and Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age ).
Thirty-year-old Juno director Reitman, while happy with the Oscar nods, said he's frustrated that his film isn't eligible for a Genie in Canada. Canada's premier English-language cinema prizes will be handed out March 3.
"Everything about my movie is Canadian," Reitman said at the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday. "It's a Canadian director, Canadian stars, Canadian cast, Canadian crew, shot in Canada — how are we not eligible for a Genie?"
Juno wasn't considered Canadian enough for the Genies, but awards officials have never explained how they determine which films qualify.
Other Canadian nominees for Sunday night's Academy Awards include animated-short competitors I Met the Walrus (Josh Raskin and Jerry Levitan) and Madame Tutli-Putli (Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski), as well as a trio of sound engineers: Paul Massey and David Giammarco, who worked on the western 3:10 to Yuma, and Craig Berkey, who worked on No Country for Old Men.
Bets are on for No Country for Old Men to take major prizes, especially best film and best directing for Joel and Ethan Coen. Bookmakers have the film as a 1-3 favourite, while the Coens are backed at 1-4 to scoop the best director prize.
"It's going to be the second year in a row that a best picture winner has won where all guns have been blazing," said Tom O'Neil, an awards season pundit with the Los Angeles Times' theenvelope.com, recalling Martin Scorsese's win in 2007 for gangster movie The Departed. O'Neil has his money on the Coen brothers movie.
"It's really filled with great performances, and I think that it's going to help it. No Country for Old Men is a movie that people like. It really has everything going for it," agreed Lew Harris of Movies.com.
No Country for Old Men, featuring a diabolical killer played by Javier Bardem, has eight nominations going into Sunday night's gala, as does the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed There Will Be Blood, starring Daniel Day Lewis as a sadistic oil man at the turn of the century.
The 80th annual Academy Awards, hosted by comedian Jon Stewart, will be broadcast live from Hollywood's Kodak Theater.

'No Country for Old Men' snaps up early Oscar awards

HOLLYWOOD — No Country for Old Men got off to a killer start at the 80th annual Academy Awards.
Javier Bardem, who portrayed a particularly brutal serial killer in No Country, won the first of the “big six” Oscars, in the supporting-actor category.
During his acceptance speech, the Spaniard — directing his comments toward his mother in the audience — told her in Spanish that this Oscar will help “to recover the dignity of actors... and it’s for our pride.”
Soon afterward, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen won the Oscar for adapted screenplay for No Country — based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. Canadian writer/director/actress Sarah Polley, 29, was nominated in that category for her celebrated feature-film directorial debut, Away From Her. She had adapted her screenplay from Alice Munro’s short story.
In a huge early upset, French actress Marion Cotillard beat huge favourite Away From Her’s Julie Christie for the best-actress Oscar. In her broken Engish, a clearly rattled Cotillard thanked “life” and “love” for her victory. Ellen Page of Halifax, who just turned 21, was up for best actress for her turn as the pregnant teen in Juno.
Whether Oscar was going to heap its lion’s share of praises by night’s end on Old Men, oil men, war men, corporate men or a lovable pregnant teen was unknown at press time for this edition.
No Country for Old Men, the dark tale of a serial killer on the trail of a looted fortune, was thought to be the likely winner of the best-picture Oscar, over the oil epic There Will Be Blood, the World War II drama Atonement, the corporate drama Michael Clayton and the popular comedy Juno, starring Page.
The Coen brothers went into the evening hoping to make Academy Awards history by winning all four categories in which they were nominated: best picture, director, adapted screenplay and — under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes — in film editing. But when The Bourne Ultimatum won for film editing, that dream died. Only legendary animator Walt Disney has ever won four Oscars in the same year, albeit not for the same movie.
No Country lost in three other technical categories, one to There Will Be Blood in cinematography, and two to The Bourne Ultimatum, in sound editing and sound mixing. The latter meant that Kevin O’Connell’s incredible Oscar losing streak was extended to 0-for-20.
In a big surprise, Tilda Swinton won the supporting-actress Oscar for Michael Clayton. Cate Blanchett’s turn as folk-era Bob Dylan in I’m Not There and 83-year-old Ruby Dee, for American Gangster, were seen to be the favourites in that category.
Swinton said she was completely shocked.
“I thought Ruby Dee would win and then, frankly, anybody but me,” Swinton told reporters backstage.”
She did not react to her name being announced as winner, she admitted.
“I had a reverse Zoolander moment when I thought I heard someone else’s name. Then I slowwwwly heard my own.”
Other Canadians were up for Oscars at the Kodak Theater.
Two Canadian filmmakers lost in the animated-shorts category. Josh Rankin’s I Met the Walrus and Chris Lavis and Maciek Szcerbowski’s Madame Tutli-Putli failed to gain more academy votes than Peter & the Wolf.
Also for Juno, Montreal-born Jason Reitman, himself only 30, was up for best director. He is the son of Canadian director Ivan Reitman.
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, hosting for the second time, opened last night’s awards show by referencing the bitter writers strike that ended earlier this month, saying, “Welcome to makeup sex.”
The first award of the night, presented by Jennifer Garner, went to Elizabeth: The Golden Age. George Clooney, in a traditional tuxedo with a big ’70s-style bow tie, introduced a montage of highlights from Oscar shows past.
In the early going, even though it was clear No Country had begun to pick up steam, the awards were spread far and wide — with seven other films getting at least one Oscar.
Brad Bird, director of Ratatouille, which won as best animated feature, made an impassioned plea backstage for animated films to get back in the running for best picture. But he still said that he’s happy with his own category.
“It’s all good. Come on, it’s the Oscars!” Bird told reporters.

Bardem, Swinton Win Supporting Oscars

Actor Javier Bardem accepts the Oscar for best supporting actor for "No Country for Old Men" during the 80th annual Academy Awards, the Oscars, in Hollywood February 24, 2008. (Gary Hershorn / Reuters)

Iraq Gov't Criticizes Turkish Incursion

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's government criticized Turkey's ground incursion into northern Iraq targeting Kurdish rebels, saying Saturday that military force won't solve the problem. The country's Kurdish president warned Turkey not to target civilians.
The troop crossing was Turkey's first major ground incursion against Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq in nearly a decade. Turkey has sought to avoid confrontation with U.S.-backed Iraq, saying the guerrillas were its only target.
Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraqis understood that Turkey faced threats from the fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which has waged a battle for Kurdish autonomy for years, often using bases in northern Iraq.
"But military operations will not solve the PKK problem. Turkey has resorted to military options but this never resulted in a good thing," al-Dabbagh said at a news conference. "Turkey should adopt another type of solution."
The rebels are fighting for autonomy in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey and have carried out attacks on Turkish targets from bases in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The conflict started in 1984 and has claimed as many as 40,000 lives.
The advance was the first confirmed Turkish military ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Turkey's army is believed to have carried out unacknowledged "hot pursuits" in recent years, with small groups of troops staying in Iraq for as little as a few hours or a day.
Iraq's Kurdish President Massoud Barzani warned that the regional government would not stand by if the Turks struck civilians.
"The regional government of Kurdistan will not be a part of the conflict between the Turkish government and the PKK fighters. But at the same time, we stress that if the Turkish military targets any Kurdish civilian citizens or any civilian structures, then we will order a large-scale resistance," it said.
Tariq Jawhar, a spokesman for the National Assembly of Kurdistan, a regional body, called on the U.S. and Iraqi leadership to intervene and stop the Turkish operations.
"We want the Iraqi federal government and the U.S. to ... work hard to stop this aggression and to seek peaceful negotiation to solve the problem," he said. "Such military operations are considered a clear violation of the federal Iraqi territory."
The offensive started late Thursday after aircraft and artillery blasted suspected rebel targets. It marked a dramatic escalation in Turkey's fight with the PKK, even though Turkish officials described the operation as limited.
The PKK is considered a terrorist group by the United States and European Union as well as Turkey.
The size and scope of the assault has been difficult to confirm, with media reports saying as many as 10,000 Turkish soldiers could be involved.
Al-Dabbagh said less than 1,000 Turkish troops had crossed into Iraq. A military officer of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq has said on condition of anonymity that several hundred Turkish soldiers had crossed the border.
The Turkish military has said five of its soldiers and 24 rebels had died in a clash inside Iraq and estimated at least 20 more rebels were killed by artillery and helicopter gunships.
Turkish commanders have assured Iraq that the "operation will be a limited one and it will not violate certain standards that they have set," the Iraqi spokesman said, noting that Iraq's president and prime minister had spoken to Turkish officials.
Turkey staged about two-dozen attacks in Iraq during the rule of Saddam, who conducted brutal campaigns against Iraqi Kurds.
Some Turkish offensives, including several in the late 1990s, involved tens of thousands of soldiers. Results were mixed, however, with rebels suffering combat losses and regrouping after Turkish forces withdrew.
Iraq's Oil Ministry, meanwhile, ruled out halting oil exports through Turkey because of the military operations. A pipeline that runs into Turkey was often halted in past years due to sabotage, but is now pumping more than 300,000 barrels per day.
"Turkish military operations will not affect pumping oil through this pipeline as both Iraqi and Turkish governments are keen not to halt it," Assem Jihad told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Pakistan’s New Prime Minister?

As the victors of Monday’s Pakistani elections continued to discuss who would lead their coalition in parliament, party insiders tell NEWSWEEK that the choice will most likely be veteran politician Makhdoom Amin Fahim. "It's almost a done deal," says an official from the Pakistan People's Party who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the information. The PPP, led by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto until her assassination in late December, won the most seats in the national assembly and thus has the prerogative to name the premier. Another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, whose party ran second, has agreed to support the choice.

Fahim, 68, almost became prime minister in 2002. Only his loyalty to Bhutto kept him from running the government. Back then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was scrambling to find coalition partners to bolster his own jerry-built party. He offered the top job to Fahim, who then as now was vice chairman of the PPP, but only under the condition that Fahim would not take direction from Bhutto, who was in exile. Fahim flatly refused. During her nine long years abroad, Bhutto knew she could rely on her fellow landowner from southern Sindh Province to be a trusted adviser and executor of her plans on the ground. Her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who is now the PPP's co-chairman, is counting on the same fidelity.

Fahim is renowned for his complete lack of charisma. But he has a reputation for being able to work with others and get things done. And most important for both Zardari and Sharif, Fahim is not personally ambitious. If he were he would have succumbed to the many offers and veiled threats over the years to join Musharraf. Fahim says he has no regrets. He is a complex, well-rounded man of seemingly contradictory traits. The scion of a landed feudal family, his father was a Sufi spiritual leader (the "pir of Hala") and one of the founders in 1969 of the populist PPP, along with Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Although a landed gentleman and a locally venerated "pir," or Sufi saint (an inherited mantle), Fahim is a totally secular, moderate, pragmatic social democrat as well as a mystic poet. He has a squeaky-clean reputation, which is unusual for a Pakistani politician.

Zardari cannot say the same thing. Nicknamed "Mr. Ten Percent" for the alleged kickbacks he received while Bhutto was in power, he served eight years in jail on corruption charges. (He denies the charges and has not been convicted.) He did not run for the assembly himself, preferring to remain abroad and look after the children while his wife campaigned and led the party. And at least for now he's made it clear that he does not want to be prime minister. Party insiders say he realizes he could be too divisive a figure. But he can rest assured that Fahim will follow the party line that Zardari will largely lay down. Perhaps as important an asset as Fahim's personal loyalty and political savvy is the fact that he is widely trusted by "the establishment," the name Pakistanis give to the powerful nexus of the military, top bureaucrats and influential businessmen. The same cannot be said for Zardari.

Fahim is doubtless comfortable with the fact that he won't be calling the shots and that he may not last all of the national assembly's five-year tenure. He knows he may be serving largely to keep the seat warm for Zardari, who may want to replace him once the coalition is more firmly established. Zardari is certain to run for, and win, an assembly seat in a by-election in the next few months, putting him in a position to become prime minister.

The choice of Fahim is largely good news for Washington. He is pro-West and favors close military and economic ties with the United States. But just like Zardari and Sharif and a vast majority of Pakistanis, he believes that Pakistan has to recalibrate its relationship with Washington and its strategy of confronting extremists in the lawless tribal areas. The new civilian leadership has expressed greater interest in a diplomatic approach to tribal leaders, well aware that Musharraf's military strategy along the border is widely thought of as an American imposition.

Thus far Zardari has shown less appetite for confronting Musharraf directly than Sharif has. Their coalition lacks the two-thirds majority needed to impeach the president. But they have agreed to let the parliament decide whether to restore the supreme court justices dismissed by Musharraf last fall when he imposed a state of emergency; most observers expect that the restored judges would declare that Musharraf's re-election, which occurred under the state of emergency, was illegal. Knowing the stakes, Musharraf is in no hurry to convene parliament. He's expected to drag his feet for the next two to three weeks or more in the hope of engineering some divide in the freshly minted coalition. Meanwhile Zardari, Sharif and Fahim will be doing everything they can to fend off any moves to destabilize them.

Pakistan's Opposition Unites Against President Pervez Musharraf

Feb. 22 Pakistan's two main opposition parties, which have never worked together in the nation's 60- year existence, have united in their rejection of President Pervez Musharraf's rule.
Now, they must get down to the work of fixing power shortages, reining in inflation and stopping terrorist attacks along the Afghan border that have made Pakistan an international byword for insecurity.
``The first challenge for both of them will be to stay together,'' said Zafar Nawaz Jaspal, associate professor of international relations at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. ``So far only one agenda has bound them together, which is opposing Musharraf. The immediate challenges will be on the economic and foreign policy front.''
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, 58, and Pakistan Peoples Party leader Asif Ali Zardari, 51, late yesterday said they will support each other, setting aside decades of political rivalry to challenge Musharraf's military-backed rule.
``We plan to be in parliament together, to strengthen democracy together and to build a stronger Pakistan together,'' Zardari, husband of the slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, told a joint news conference in the capital, Islamabad.
Sharif said he respected the PPP's mandate and its right to form a government. ``We will not cause any problems to the government,'' said Sharif, who returned from seven years in exile to contest the election. ``We will allow it to complete its five years.''
Manage Economy
The new government will have to manage an economy where rising food prices and power shortages have curbed growth. The alliance will be key for U.S. foreign policy in the region, as the Bush administration has pumped $10 billion into Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to fund military operations against the militant Islamic Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The country's two most popular political groups were bitter rivals when Sharif and Bhutto alternated power four times between 1988 and 1999. The group will need to ally with other political organizations to secure the two-thirds majority needed to challenge the legitimacy of Musharraf's rule.
While neither mentioned the possibility of impeaching Musharraf, Sharif said the president must resign. Zardari was less specific: ``The mandate of the people is clear,'' he said.
Dissatisfaction with Musharraf's steering of the economy was one of the biggest reasons why voters opposed his party in elections Feb. 18, according to polls before the vote. With borrowing costs at a six-year high the new government may have to spend on subsidies to meet voter demands to cut fuel and food costs.
``The chance is the new coalition government will go by impulse and will take populist decisions,'' said Sakib Sherani, chief economist at ABN Amro Bank Pakistan in Karachi. ``You have got high and accelerating inflation and runaway borrowing by the government from the central bank.''
Inflation Accelerated
Inflation accelerated the most in 33 months in January on higher wheat flour prices, pushed up by shortages caused by hoarding before the elections and smuggling of grain to neighboring Afghanistan. Prices have risen more than 20 percent since November in Pakistan, the world's sixth-largest grain consumer.
Textile makers, the drivers of 60 percent of the country's exports, are losing overseas orders to rivals in India and China after month-long power and natural gas cuts shut down most factories, disrupting production.
The shortage of energy supplies had caused a $1 billion loss of exports by the end of January, according to the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association. More than 3,000 spinning and weaving factories have closed, said Anis-ulhaq, secretary of the textile maker's group.
Military Coup
Sharif said the provision Musharraf had lawmakers insert into the constitution that give him the power to dissolve the Parliament will be ``taken care of.'' He said the new Parliament will restore the 1973 constitution, which doesn't include such powers.
The party leaders also said they will find common ground in deciding what to do about former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other Supreme Court judges who were sacked and detained by Musharraf because he feared they would declare his continued rule illegal.
Sharif yesterday joined lawyers demonstrating outside the compound in Islamabad where Chaudhry is under house arrest. Zardari has previously voiced his support for an independent judiciary without calling for the justices' reinstatement.
``In principle there is no disagreement on the restoration of the judges,'' said Sharif. ``We will work out the modalities in the parliament.''
Sharif last led Pakistan in 1999 before he was ousted by Musharraf in a military coup. Zardari has little political experience, having only taken over running the PPP when his wife was assassinated on Dec. 27.
The PPP won the most seats in the parliamentary elections, without securing enough to form a government on its own. Zardari earlier said he'd work with the Awami National Party, which ousted pro-Taliban religious parties in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.
President George W. Bush said he hoped the new government would be an ally for the U.S. in the fight against extremists. Zardari on Feb. 20 said the majority of Pakistanis opposed the ``Talibanization'' of the South Asian nation after supporters of the Islamic group were routed in the elections.
``Between my party and his we have the solutions,'' Zardari said. ``We have to have a political solution to all Pakistan's problems.''

Democratic debate starts gently -- then sparring begins

9:56 PM CST, February 21, 2008

AUSTIN, Texas -- Barack Obama defended his presidential campaign style as more than just inspirational, and Hillary Clinton got a mixed reaction when she told a debate audience Thursday night that her rival's use of borrowed oratory makes his call for change as genuine as a Xerox copy.Obama criticized Clinton for trying to discredit those who are backing his campaign as "somehow delusional." But Clinton, crediting Obama as a "passionate, eloquent speaker" said it was not enough to say "let's come together" when the nation faced difficult political obstacles ahead.In an unusual political homage to close the debate, Clinton paid deference to the Democratic presidential campaign's front-runner, saying she was "absolutely honored" to share a stage with Obama."I think everybody here knows I've lived through some crises and some challenging moments in my life," she said, in apparent reference to her life in the White House with her husband, Bill. But in citing a visit to a veterans' hospital and seeing injured soldiers from the Iraq war, she said, "the hits I've taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country ..."Whatever happens," Clinton said of the election, "we're going to be fine."The 90-minute debate, broadcast from the LBJ Library at the University of Texas by CNN and the Spanish-language Univision network, reflected the high stakes and tough rhetoric resulting from a prolonged Democratic presidential contest in which Clinton, a national front-runner only months ago, finds herself now a serious underdog.With the results of March 4 primaries in delegate-rich Texas and Ohio a potential deciding point for the Democratic nomination, the candidates played to audiences in both states in discussing issues ranging from illegal immigration to ways to restore the economy and create jobs.But in acknowledging their positions on many controversial issues were virtually identical, the candidates discussed their records and experience to try to draw distinctions that might attract undecided voters in the states that lie ahead.The two raised the issue of expanded health care -- the most frequent area of disagreement. Clinton's plan would require everyone to obtain health care, while Obama's plan would require only children to be covered. Both would offer government health plans and subsidies to encourage more people to get insurance.Clinton has charged that Obama's plan would leave 15 million without insurance, something he denies. The first-term Illinois senator contended that Clinton had previously credited him with proposing a universal health care plan, only later to begin criticizing it when the race got tight."My plan hasn't changed," Obama said. "The politics have changed a little bit." The two differed on how the next president should deal with Cuba in wake of Fidel Castro's decision to step down.Obama, echoing an early campaign statement that he would meet with leaders of rogue nations without precondition, said he would meet with Cuba's new leadership after adequate diplomatic preparations."It is very important for us to make sure that there was an agenda, and on that agenda was human rights, releasing of political prisoners, opening up the press. And that preparation might take some time," he said.But Clinton said "a presidential visit should not be offered and given without some evidence that it will demonstrate the kind of progress that is in our interest." After a gentle start to the debate, Clinton acknowledged Obama's qualities as a speaker. But she said "actions speak louder than words" as she attempted to portray the first-term Illinois senator as a politician who can talk a good game while producing few results.Obama, acknowledging that some of his speeches "are pretty good," said his efforts on behalf of health care and criminal justice reform as a state legislator and ethics reform at the federal level demonstrated an effective record."Sen. Clinton has a fine record and so do I," Obama said. "We shouldn't be spending time tearing each other down. We should be spending time lifting people up." He criticized her for trying to leave the impression that his supporters are "being duped and eventually they're going to see the reality of things." Clinton attacked Obama for his previously acknowledged use of phrases originally delivered by his friend, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, in campaign speeches. Obama has said Patrick offered the phrases but probably should have been given credit.Clinton said, "If your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words." "Lifting whole passages from someone else's speeches is not change you can believe it, it's change you can Xerox," she said, drawing some boos from the audience and prompting Obama to reply, "C'mon." The clash came as new polling showed a tightening race in Texas and Ohio, two March 4 states that top Clinton campaign advisers, as well as her husband, have said are in the must-win category for her.One new poll, conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News, found the battle for Texas tied, while Clinton held a 7 percentage point lead over Obama in Ohio. Clinton has seen previous polls showing her holding an advantage over Obama, only to see his recent momentum erode her support among women and lower-income.Clinton entered the debate under increased pressure to try to score well off Obama and to forestall the Illinois senator's momentum. After suffering a significant loss on Tuesday in Wisconsin, Clinton has ratcheted up her arguments that Obama remains a largely untested political commodity.Earlier Thursday, Clinton saw her attempts to woo organized labor as part of a last stand against Obama fail as he won the backing of Change to Win, a group that represents seven national unions with 6 million members.Of the group's seven unions, four had already endorsed Obama: the Service Employees International Union, UNITE Here, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers."It is time to bring this nomination process to a close," said Anna Burger, the organization's chairwoman.While Texas was the battleground among the Democrats on Thursday night, a CNN/Opinion Research Poll showed Republican John McCain with greater support among Texas general election voters than Obama or Clinton. Texas has been a strong Republican state in recent elections.

Pakistan Victors in Talks on Coalition

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The leaders of the two victorious parties in Pakistan’s parliamentary elections were due to meet here in Islamabad, the capital, Thursday night in what is seen as a make-or-break effort to try to form a coalition.
But with divisions between them over how to approach the question of President Pervez Musharraf’s future and the reinstatement of the judiciary that the president swept away when he imposed emergency rule last November, the likelihood of that partnership appeared to be in question.
Some analysts expected that, instead, Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of the slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and now the head of the party with the largest number of seats in the new parliament, would reach out to the remnants of Mr. Musharraf’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q.
Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, which came in second to Mr. Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party, remains adamant on trying to bring impeachment proceedings against President Pervez Musharraf, who ousted Mr. Sharif from power in 1999 in a coup. Mr. Sharif also wants an immediate reinstatement of the judiciary, in particular the former chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, who has been under house arrest for three months.
To show his solidarity with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr.Sharif joined a noisy demonstration on Thursday outside the judge’s Islamabad home, where he has been kept in detention for the past three months. Mr. Sharif, speaking through a bullhorn to cheers, said that he would make sure in the next few days that the chief justice and dozens of other judges “illegally” fired by President Musharraf would be restored the bench. Mr. Sharif then asked the protesters to disband.
Mr. Zardari has taken a somewhat softer line on the restoration of the judiciary, saying it should be a matter for the new Parliament.
Several days after Ms. Bhutto was assassinated, Mr. Zardari lashed out at Mr. Musharraf’s party, accusing it of masterminding his wife’s death and calling it “the killer party.” But since the election Monday, Mr. Zardari has taken a less hard line. By Wednesday he had dropped his harsh references to Mr. Musharraf and the president’s defeated party.
As the maneuvering has intensified between the political parties in the last several days, the perception has grown among Pakistanis that the Bush administration would much prefer Mr. Zardari to join forces with the followers of Mr. Musharraf than Mr. Sharif.
The United States ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, met with Mr. Zardari Wednesday at the American embassy, an encounter that bolstered the belief among Pakistanis that Washington was in the thick of the political negotiations.
Statements from the White House and the State Department encouraging a broad consensus in a new government also added to the sense that the administration is eager to try to preserve some power for Mr. Musharraf, an ally in the campaign on terror.
Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, confirmed Thursday that Mr. Bush took time during a tour of African states to telephone Mr. Musharraf on Tuesday following the loss in the parliamentary elections. The call was made during Mr. Bush’s flight from Rwanda to Ghana, but Ms. Perino would not say what the two leaders discussed. She said it was up to the Pakistani people to decide whether Mr. Musharraf retained his position.
Some Pakistanis warned Thursday that the United States must stand back.
The leader of the opposition lawyers movement in Pakistan, Aitzaz Ahsan, who has been under house arrest for more than three months but is now able to speak by telephone, said he had told a visiting American diplomat on Wednesday: “The guy is history, please don’t prop him up.”
He said he underscored that Mr. Musharraf’s party had won only a fraction of the 272 parliamentary seats to the diplomat, Bryan Hunt, the United States consul general in Lahore. Mr. Ahsan has become a folk hero among the lawyers who fought President Musharraf’s battle with the Supreme Court chief justice and the judiciary in general. His steadfast stand behind the restoration of judges appeared to be a motivating force behind the surprisingly strong showing in the elections for Mr. Sharif.
Mr. Ahsan argued that, in terms of Washington’s priority in Pakistan, the campaign against terror, the restoration of the judiciary and the end of Mr. Musharraf was essential. Weapons of war were not the primary ingredient for success against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, he said. “The only effective weapon is an empowered people with enforceable rights, and you can’t have those rights without an independent judiciary,” he said.
Mr. Ahsan is a senior member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, although he had a prickly relationship with Ms. Bhutto, who appeared to resent his independent streak.
One of Pakistan’s most sought-after lawyers, Mr. Ahsan defended Mr. Zardari and Ms. Bhutto in court when they faced corruption charges after her first term as prime minister, and won acquittals for the couple on 18 cases between 1990 and 1993, he said.
Mr. Zardari currently faces corruption charges in Switzerland. He said in an interview last week that corruption cases against him in Pakistan were still pending.
Mr. Ahsan warned that if a new parliamentary coalition did not heed the call to reinstate the judiciary, he was readying a campaign to pressure the new Parliament to do so.
On March 9, the anniversary of President Musharraf’s first suspension of the Supreme Court justice, Mr. Chaudhry, Mr. Ahsan said he would lead a long caravan of vehicles, coming from Lahore and other major cities, into Islamabad. The caravan would include scores of judges who had been dismissed late last year, at the same time Mr. Chaudhry was removed for a second time.

Pentagon Says It’s Confident Missile Hit Satellite Tank

WASHINGTON — Just hours after a Navy missile interceptor struck a dying spy satellite orbiting 130 miles over the Pacific Ocean, a senior military officer expressed high confidence early Thursday that a tank filled with toxic rocket fuel had been breached.
Video of the unusual operation showed the missile leaving a bright trail as it streaked toward the satellite, and then a flash, a fireball, a plume and a cloud as the interceptor, at a minimum, appeared to have found its target, a satellite that went dead shortly after being launched in 2006.
“We’re very confident that we hit the satellite,” said Gen. James E. Cartwright of the Marines, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We also have a high degree of confidence that we got the tank.”
General Cartwright cautioned that despite visual and spectral evidence that the hydrazine rocket fuel had been dispersed, it could take 24 to 48 hours before the Pentagon could announce with full confidence that the mission was a success. Even so, he said the military had 80 to 90 percent confidence the fuel tank was breached.
The fuel tank aboard the satellite was believed strong enough to survive the fiery re-entry through the atmosphere, and officials expressed concerns that the toxic fuel could pose a hazard to populated areas.
General Cartwright said debris from the strike, with individual pieces no larger than a football, already had begun to re-enter the atmosphere. Most, he said, was predicted to fall into the ocean.
Even so, the State Department was alerting American embassies around the world so they could keep their host governments informed, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had put out instructions to first responders across the United States about steps to take should hazardous debris fall in populated areas.
The first international reaction came from China, where the government objected on Thursday to the American missile strike, warning that the United States Navy’s action could threaten security in outer space.
Liu Jianchao, the Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesman, said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States should also share data promptly about what will become of the remaining pieces of the satellite, which are expected to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and mostly burn up in the next two days.
“China is continuously following closely the possible harm caused by the U.S. action to outer space security and relevant countries,” Mr. Liu said, according to the Associated Press. “China requests the U.S. to fulfill its international obligations in real earnest and provide to the international community necessary information and relevant data in a timely and prompt way so that relevant countries can take precautions.”
American officials were critical of China last year for using an anti-satellite weapon to destroy a satellite in a much higher orbit in January 2007 and then refusing to confirm the test for nearly two weeks. The Chinese test produced 1,600 pieces of debris that are expected to orbit the Earth for years, preventing other spacecraft from using the same or similar orbits.
During a Pentagon news conference Thursday morning, General Cartwright rebuffed those who said the mission was, at least in part, organized to showcase American missile defense or anti-satellite capabilities.
He said the missile itself had to be reconfigured from its task of tracking and hitting an adversary’s warhead to instead find a cold, tumbling satellite. “This was a one-time modification,” General Cartwright said.
Sensors from the American missile defense system were an important part of this mission, though, he said.
He stressed that “the intent here was to preserve human life,” but also acknowledged that “the technical degree of difficulty was significant” and the accomplishment earned cheers from personnel in command centers across the military, as well.
Completing a mission in which an interceptor designed for missile defense was used for the first time to attack a satellite, the Lake Erie, an Aegis-class cruiser, fired a single missile just before 10:30 p.m. Eastern time, and the missile hit the satellite as it traveled at more than 17,000 miles per hour, the Pentagon said in its official announcement.
“A network of land-, air-, sea- and spaced-based sensors confirms that the U.S. military intercepted a nonfunctioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite which was in its final orbits before entering the Earth’s atmosphere,” the statement said.
By early Wednesday, three Navy warships were in position in the Pacific Ocean to launch the interceptors and to track the mission.
Radar and other tracking equipment, both in space and on the ground, were monitored at Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, and at a space command headquarters in Colorado Springs, with control of the operation managed by the Strategic Command in Omaha, Neb.
Although the satellite circled the globe every 90 minutes, analysts pinpointed a single overhead pass each day that would offer the best chance of striking the satellite and then having half of the debris fall into the atmosphere in the next three orbits over water or less-populated areas of the Earth.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who left Washington on Wednesday for a week of meetings in Asia, had been empowered by President Bush to issue the order to shoot down the satellite and gave the order several hours before the strike.
The many moving parts of a mission to shoot down a dying spy satellite with an antimissile interceptor were lined up earlier Wednesday after the space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth, officials said.
Military officials said their goal had been to carry out the mission before March 1, when the satellite was expected to start skidding against the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
That initial friction would bump the satellite into a more unpredictable Earth orbit, even before it started a fiery descent through the atmosphere.
Providing new information about how the mission would be carried out, a senior military officer on Wednesday described the vessels, weapons and command structure for the operation
The senior military officer said the mission would be launched in daylight to take advantage of radar, heat-sensor tracking and visual tracking equipment. The Navy had a window that lasted only tens of seconds as the satellite passed overhead, military officers said.
The Lake Erie has two Standard Missile 3 rockets that were adapted to track the cold satellite, as opposed to the heated enemy warheads for which it was designed. A second ship, the destroyer Decatur, had a third missile as backup. Another Navy destroyer, the Russell, sailed with the convoy for added tracking capabilities.
The 5,000-pound satellite, roughly the size of a school bus, was managed by the National Reconnaissance Office and went dead shortly after it was launched in December 2006. The FEMA document notes, “Any debris should be considered potentially hazardous, and first responders should not attempt to pick it up or move it.”
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong.