Bush, who promised in the 2000 campaign to uphold "honor and integrity" in the White House, last week ordered White House workers, from presidential advisers to low-ranking aides, to attend ethics classes.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10961.htm

Unless the Bush administration significantly cuts American troop levels in Iraq next year, the U.S. military's roughly 140,000-strong presence there will become a detriment to America's national security, according to a report released this week.

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20051110-125019-8225r


From Information Clearing House

By Chris Floyd

The slaughter in Fallujah was a microcosm of the entire misbegotten enterprise launched by those two eminent Christian statesmen, U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair: a brutal act of collective punishment for defying the imperial will, a high-tech turkey shoot that mowed down the just and unjust alike, an idiotic strategic blunder that has exacerbated the violence and hatred it was meant to quell.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10960.htm

By Gar Smith

There is a small band of men who are such firm believers in the protections of the Bill of Rights that they are willing to lay down their lives to defend these principles. They aren't soldiers or civil libertarians — they are a group of "enemy combatants" confined in the gulag of Guantanamo.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10959.htm

Molly Ivins: I can't get over this feeling of unreality, that I am actually sitting here writing about our country having a gulag of secret prisons in which it tortures people. I have loved America all my life, even though I have often disagreed with the government. But this seems to me so preposterous, so monstrous. Torture does not work. It is not productive. It does not yield important, timely information. That is in the movies. This is reality.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111105G.shtml

The Nation: There can no longer be any doubt: The war - an unprovoked, unnecessary and unlawful invasion that has turned into a colonial-style occupation - is a moral and political catastrophe. The Nation therefore takes the following stand: We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111105F.shtml

Fed up by the inaction of politicians on both sides of the aisle, a new group is bypassing Congress to take the issue directly to the voters. Calling itself HomeFromIraqNow.org, it is sponsoring a binding initiative in Massachusetts to stop future deployment of National Guard troops overseas. If successful in Massachusetts, HomeFromIraqNow.org hopes to repeat the feat in some of the other 23 states that allow citizen petitions, creating nothing short of a national referendum on the war itself.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111105E.shtml

Derelict factories, military scrap yards and battle sites across Iraq pose a threat to the environment and to public health, the United Nations has said. The UN Environment Program has trained Iraqi specialists in detoxification, but says any clean-up could cost up to $40m (£23m).

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111105C.shtml

Lawyers for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) tried unsuccessfully in late September to head off felony criminal indictments against the then-majority leader on charges of violating Texas campaign law by signaling that DeLay might plead guilty to a misdemeanor, according to four sources familiar with the events. The lawyers' principal aim was to try to preserve DeLay's leadership position under House Republican rules that bar lawmakers accused of felonies from holding such posts.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111105B.shtml

To critics, the 450 portable classrooms being installed across Mississippi are prime examples in their case against FEMA and its federal partner, the Army Corps of Engineers, for wasteful spending and favoritism in the $62 billion hurricane relief effort. Provided by a politically connected Alaskan-owned business under a $40 million no-bid contract, the classrooms cost FEMA nearly $90,000 each. That is double the wholesale price and nearly 60 percent higher than the price offered by two small Mississippi businesses dropped from the deal.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111105A.shtml