500,000 Iranian Centrifuges

Tehran ups the ante again as diplomacy goes nowhere. 

Mohamed ElBaradei caps his contentious and ultimately failed 12-year stint as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency today, having spent many years enabling Iran's nuclear bids only to condemn them in his final days in office. Mr. ElBaradei combined his rebuke of Iran with his familiar calls for more negotiation, but we'll take his belated realism about Iran as his tacit admission that Dick Cheney and John Bolton have been right all along. Let's hope the education of the Obama Administration doesn't take as long.
As if to underscore the point, yesterday the Iranian government ordered up 10 additional uranium enrichment plants on the scale of its already operational facility in Natanz, which has a planned capacity of 54,000 centrifuges. That could mean an eventual total of more than 500,000 centrifuges, or enough to enrich about 160 bombs worth of uranium each year. Whether it can ever do that is an open question, but it does give a sense of the scale of the regime's ambitions.
The decision is also a reminder of how unchastened Iran has been by President Obama's revelation in September that Iran had been building a secret 3,000 centrifuge facility near the city of Qom. The IAEA's governing board finally got around on Friday to rebuking Iran for that deception, a vote the Administration trumpeted because both Russia and China voted with the United States. But perhaps only within the Obama Administration can a symbolic gesture by the IAEA be considered a diplomatic triumph.

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Associated Press

Mohamad ElBaradei

"Time is running out for Iran to address the international community's growing concerns about its nuclear program," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday, but the West has said this many times before. Earlier this year, Mr. Obama said Iran had a deadline of September.

The regime scoffed at Mr. Obama after he delivered a conciliating message for the Persian New Year in March, scoffed again after he mildly criticized its post-election crackdown and killing spree in June (following days of silence), and scoffed a third time by rejecting the West's offer last month to enrich Iran's uranium for it. Yet the Administration insists the enrichment deal is still Iran's for the taking. "A few years ago [the West] said we had to completely stop all our nuclear activities," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last month. "Now look where we are today."
Those are the words of a man who believes he has Mr. Obama's number. And until the President, his advisers and the Europeans realize that only punitive sanctions or military strikes will force it to reconsider its nuclear ambitions, an emboldened Islamic Republic will continue to march confidently toward a bomb over the wreckage of Mohamed ElBaradei's—and Barack Obama's—best intentions.

 

War tax proponent Obey calls expected troop surge a 'fool's errand'

By Jim Snyder - 11/29/09 01:19 PM ET

The chief architect of a bill to increase taxes to pay for the Afghanistan war said he didn't believe adding troops would yield much benefit.

"The problem is you can have the best policy in the world but if you don't have the tools to implement it it isn't worth a bean bag,"
Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.), the House Appropriations Committee chairman, told CNN on Sunday.

President Barack Obama is expected to announce on Tuesday he will add 30,000 troops to the war effort in Afghanistan to stem the rise of Taliban and to pursue al-Qaeda.

But Obey said supporting a corrupt Afghan government by adding troops amounted to a "fool's errand."

If policymakers believe continuing the war effort in Afghanistan was an important public policy, Obey added, then they should be willing to pay for it by raising taxes on higher income levels. The war would likely cost as much over the next decade as the effort to reforming the healthcare system, Obey said.

"If we're being told we have to pay for healthcare we certainly pay for this effort as well," Obey said. Otherwise, Congress would eventually have to raid other parts of the budget targeted at education or the economy to fund the war effort. Using deficit spending to pay for the operations has also removed most Americans from any burden in the war effort.

"In this war, we have not had any sense of shared sacrifice," Obey said.

Obey's bill would increase taxes by 1 percent on incomes over $150,000. Tax rates would increase further at higher income levels.

The financial cost of sending more troops to Afghanistan was a central theme on Sunday talk shows.

Earlier on CNN's "State of the Union," Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said a surtax should be part of the debate about how to pay for the war.

"We're going to have to have a serious talk about budget and about the $1 trillion deficit we are in now and will continue to be in," Lugar said.

But his colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), told ABC's "This Week" that Congress should cut spending to pay for the additional troops.

Dubai is just a harbinger of things to come for sovereign debt

Jeremy Warner

Jeremy Warner, assistant editor of The Daily Telegraph, is one of Britain's leading business and economics commentators.

Watch out. This may be just the beginning. In the scale of things, the debt problems of Dubai are little more than a flea bite. Dubai’s sovereign debts total “just” $80bn, which counts for nothing against the trillions being raised by advanced economies to plug fiscal deficits.

Dubai has been a one-way ticket of economic expansion until recently

Small wonder, though, that this minor tremor has sent such shock waves around the wider capital markets. The fear is that threatened default in this tiny desert kingdom is just a harginger of things to come for government debt markets as a whole. According to new estimates by Moody’s, the credit rating agency, the total stock of sovereign debt worldwide will have risen by nearly 50 per cent between 2007 and 2010 to $15.3 trillion. The great bulk of this increase comes not from irrelevant little states like Dubai, but from the big advanced economies – America, Europe, and Japan.
Perversely, they are for the time being beneficiaries of the “flight to safety” that trouble in Dubai has sparked. Government bond yields in the major advanced economies have fallen in response to the crisis in the Gulf. If experience of the banking crisis, when investors removed their money from one bank only to find that the one they had put it into looked just as dodgy, is anything to go by, this effect will not last.
Up until now, markets have assumed that the ruinous fiscal cost of addressing the financial and economic crisis was probably just about affordable to the major economies. That view may be about to be challenged.
I’m going to be writing more about the fallout for Dubai and its implications for the advanced economies in tomorrow’s paper.

 

Obama to unveil his Afghan strategy Tuesday at West Point

The president is expected to announce that the U.S. will send more troops to Afghanistan. He also is likely to offer a plan for eventually withdrawing U.S. forces.

By Peter Nicholas

November 25, 2009 | 9:33 a.m.

Reporting from Washington - President Obama will roll out his new strategy for the Afghanistan war during a televised speech Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the White House said.

Obama, who has presided over at least nine meetings of his senior advisers devoted to the war, is expected to announce higher troop levels for Afghanistan while also detailing a plan for ultimately withdrawing U.S. forces and handing over security responsibilities to the Afghan government.

In announcing Obama's address to the nation, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that Obama has no appetite for an indefinite military presence in Afghanistan.

"We're in the ninth year of our efforts in Afghanistan," Gibbs told reporters in his White House office. "The president will want to walk through his decision-making process and give people a sense of the importance of our efforts, but reiterate for them that the president does not see this as an open-ended engagement."

He added: "Our time there will be limited, and I think that's important for people to understand."

Before traveling to West Point on Tuesday, Obama will privately brief members of Congress about his decision. The White House has asked the television networks for airtime.

For a president facing a raft of domestic and foreign policy challenges, Afghanistan is among the thorniest. Polls show the war to be unpopular, with Americans eager for an exit strategy. Liberal Democrats who comprise Obama's political base are loath to see him commit more troops.

Yet Obama's ground commander has said at least 40,000 more military personnel are needed for the mission to succeed. Presently, about 68,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Afghanistan. Obama himself has described Afghanistan as a crucial battleground in the effort to defeat Al Qaeda terrorists.

Obama has undertaken a weeks-long review process of strategy in Afghanistan, while Republican opponents have accused him of "dithering."

With lives at stake, Obama has said he did not want to rush the decision.

Gibbs said that "throughout this process, the president has repeatedly pushed and prodded not simply for, as I've said, how are we going to get a certain number of troops in, but what is the strategy? What has to be implemented ultimately to get them out?"

Whatever the number of new troops sent to the region, Obama has indicated he is determined to complete the mission in Afghanistan. At a news conference on Tuesday he said, "I've also indicated that, after eight years, some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job."

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

British Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth criticises Barack Obama over Afghanistan

Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, has blamed Barack Obama and the United States for the decline in British public support for the war in Afghanistan. 

James Kirkup, Thomas Harding and Toby Harnden
Published: 9:00PM GMT 24 Nov 2009

The Defence Secretary's blunt remarks about the US threaten to strain further a transatlantic relationship Photo: REUTERS

Mr Ainsworth took the unprecedented step of publicly criticising the US President and his delays in sending more troops to bolster the mission against the Taliban.
A “period of hiatus” in Washington - and a lack of clear direction - had made it harder for ministers to persuade the British public to go on backing the Afghan mission in the face of a rising death toll, he said.
Senior British Government sources have become increasingly frustrated with Mr Obama’s “dithering” on Afghanistan, the Daily Telegraph disclosed earlier this month, with several former British defence chiefs echoing the concerns.
But Mr Ainsworth is the first Government minister to express in public what amounts to personal criticism of the US president’s leadership over the conflict which has so far cost 235 British lives.
Polls show most voters now want an early withdrawal, following the death of 98 British service personnel this year alone.
Ministers say the mission is vital to stop international terrorists using Afghanistan as a base, but Gordon Brown has promised an “exit strategy” that could start next year.
The Defence Secretary’s blunt remarks about the US threaten to strain further a transatlantic relationship already under pressure over the British release of the Lockerbie bomber and Mr Obama’s decision to snub Mr Brown at the United Nations in September.
Mr Ainsworth spoke out as the inquiry into the 2003 war in Iraq started in London, hearing evidence from British diplomats that the UK government concluded in 2001 that toppling Saddam Hussein by military action would be illegal.
Mr Obama has been considering advice from General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, to send more than 40,000 extra troops to the country.
Next week, after more than three months of deliberation, the president is expected to announce that he will send around 34,000 more troops.
Mr Ainsworth, speaking to MPs at the defence committe in the House of Commons, welcomed that troop 'surge' decision, but lamented the time taken to reach it.
He said that the rising British death toll, the corruption of the Afghan government and the delay in Washington all hamper efforts to retain public backing for the deployment.
“We have suffered a lot of losses," he said. "We have had a period of hiatus while McChrystal's plan and his requested uplift has been looked at in the detail to which it has been looked at over a period of some months, and we have had the Afghan elections, which have been far from perfect let us say.
“All of those things have mitigated against our ability to show progress... put that on the other side of the scales when we are suffering the kind of losses that we are."
Britain has 9,000 troops in Afghanistan and has announced it will send another 500, a decision some US officials saw as a move to put pressure on Mr Obama.
Mr Ainsworth said he is confident that once Mr Obama confirms his new strategy, allies will follow and British public opinion will shift back in favour of the mission.
“I hope and believe that we are about to get an announcement from the USA on troop numbers and I think that that will be followed by contributions from many other Nato allies and so we will be able to show that we are going forward in this campaign to an extent that we have not been able to in recent months with those issues still hanging,” he said.
Mr Ainsworth was appointed defence secretary earlier this year, his first Cabinet post.
A former factory worker and union official, he has faced questions about whether he has the stature or political clout to oversee the Armed Forces at a time of war.
In August, he told The Daily Telegraph he was less intellectually accomplished than the commanders who answer to him and suggested that his critics are motivated by class prejudice.
A report earlier this week suggested that Mr Brown is considering removing Mr Ainsworth and replacing him with Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary.
Attempting to play down Mr Ainsworth's remarks, No 10 and the Ministry of Defence last night made a statement backing Mr Obama's deliberations.
It stated: "It is right that Nato partners have taken the time to review next steps in the campaign. These are hugely important issues that rightly need careful and detailed consideration."
In an article in this newspaper today Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, claims that the reason public opinion is switching against the war in Afghanistan is because of the lies told in the run up to the Iraq war.
Mr Clegg also calls for a new approach to Afghanistan from the US. He writes: “We now need a complete change of strategy, which we still hope President Obama will announce next week.”
White House sources said yesterday that Mr Obama is preparing to address Americans in a live prime-time broadcast next Tuesday followed by testimony before Congress by senior figures such as General Stanley McChrystal, commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, and Karl Eikenberry, US ambassador to Kabul.
Mr Obama is believed to have decided to send about 34,000 more American troops in addition to the 68,000 currently in Afghanistan. Gen McChrystal requested about 40,000 more soldiers.
The US president convened a group of senior officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mr Gates in the White House Situation Room on Monday night for a ninth and final “war council” meeting.

 

Obey's Afghan War Surtax

The real liberal objection to the war on terror is that it takes away from domestic spending priorities like ObamaCare.

The White House says domestic politics is irrelevant to its pending Afghanistan decision, but domestic politicians beg to differ. "There ain't going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan," the liberal warhorse David Obey told ABC's Jonathan Karl, before threatening a "war surtax" if President Obama does end up granting General Stanley McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops.
"That's what happened with the Vietnam War, which wiped out the Great Society," the House Appropriations Chairman said with his customary subtlety. "That's what happened with the Korean War, which wiped out Harry Truman's Square Deal. That's what happened with the end of the progressive movement before the '20s when we went into World War I. In each case, the costs of those wars shut off our ability to pay for anything else."
Well, that's one reading of 20th-century national security, but another way of putting it is that the real liberal objection to the war on terror is that it takes away from domestic spending priorities like ObamaCare. For many Democrats, the goal isn't victory in Afghanistan, but victory on Capitol Hill.
Mr. Obey last floated a war surtax in the Iraq debate of 2007, and this year's iteration would be imposed on all taxpayers up to 5% on the highest income bracket. Combined with the House health-care surcharge of 5.4 percentage points and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, that would bring the top federal marginal rate to above 50%. Economic growth, in other words, would be hostage to both the anti-antiterror and the single-payer left, if that isn't redundant.

 

Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage

By Gabor Steingart

AP

US President Barack Obama is back in the US after an Asian trip that produced few results.

When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.

There were only a few hours left before Air Force One was scheduled to depart for the flight home. US President Barack Obama trip through Asia had already seen him travel 24,000 kilometers, sit through a dozen state banquets, climb the Great Wall of China and shake hands with Korean children. It was high time to take stock of the trip.

Barack Obama looked tired on Thursday, as he stood in the Blue House in Seoul, the official residence of the South Korean president. He also seemed irritable and even slightly forlorn. The CNN cameras had already been set up. But then Obama decided not to play along, and not to answer the question he had already been asked several times on his trip: what did he plan to take home with him? Instead, he simply said "thank you, guys," and disappeared. David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, fielded the journalists' questions in the hallway of the Blue House instead, telling them that the public's expectations had been "too high." The mood in Obama's foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The "first Pacific president," as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.
Lost Some Stature
Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington's new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.
In Tokyo, the new center-left government even pulled out of its participation in a mission which saw the Japanese navy refueling US warships in the Indian Ocean as part of the Afghanistan campaign. In Beijing, Obama failed to achieve any important concessions whatsoever. There will be no binding commitments from China to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A revaluation of the Chinese currency, which is kept artificially weak, has been postponed. Sanctions against Iran? Not a chance. Nuclear disarmament? Not an issue for the Chinese.
The White House did not even stand up for itself when it came to the question of human rights in China. The president, who had said only a few days earlier that freedom of expression is a universal right, was coerced into attending a joint press conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao, at which questions were forbidden. Former US President George W. Bush had always managed to avoid such press conferences.
Relatively Unsuccessful
A look back in time reveals the differences. When former President Bill Clinton went to China in June 1998, Beijing wanted to impress the Americans. A press conference in the Great Hall of the People, broadcast on television as a 70-minute live discussion, became a sensation the world over. Clinton mentioned the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, when the government used tanks against protestors. But then President Jiang Zemin defended the tough approach taken by the Chinese Communists. At the end of the exchange, the Chinese president praised the debate and said: "I believe this is democracy!"
Obama visited a new China, an economic power that is now making its own demands. America should clean up its government finances, and the weak dollar is unacceptable, the head of the Chinese banking authority said, just as Obama's plane was about to land.
Obama's new foreign policy has also been relatively unsuccessful elsewhere, with even friends like Israel leaving him high and dry. For the government of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, peace is only conceivable under its terms. Netanyahu has rejected Obama's call for a complete moratorium on the construction of settlements. As a result, Obama has nothing to offer the Palestinians and the Syrians. "We thought we had some leverage," says Martin Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel under the Clinton administration and now an advisor to Obama. "But that proved to be an illusion."
Even the president seems to have lost his faith in a genial foreign policy. The approach that was being used in Afghanistan this spring, with its strong emphasis on civilian reconstruction, is already being changed. "We're searching for an exit strategy," said a staff member with the National Security Council on the sidelines of the Asia trip.
'A Lot Like Jimmy Carter'
An end to diplomacy is also taking shape in Washington's policy toward Tehran. It is now up to Iran, Obama said, to convince the world that its nuclear power is peaceful. While in Asia, Obama mentioned "consequences" unless it followed his advice. This puts the president, in his tenth month in office, where Bush began -- with threats. "Time is running out," Obama said in Korea. It was the same phrase Bush used against former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, shortly before he sent in the bombers.
There are many indications that the man in charge at the White House will take a tougher stance in the future. Obama's advisors fear a comparison with former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, even more than with Bush. Prominent Republicans have already tried to liken Obama to the humanitarian from Georgia, who lost in his bid to win a second term, because voters felt that he was too soft. "Carter tried weakness and the world got tougher and tougher because the predators, the aggressors, the anti-Americans, the dictators, when they sense weakness, they all start pushing ahead," Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker in the House of Representatives, recently said. And then he added: "This does look a lot like Jimmy Carter."
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Iran to conduct military exercise aimed at protecting nuke sites

Iran test-fired missiles in September amid heightened tension over the country's nuclear program.

Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- Iran plans to launch a large aerial military exercise Sunday to prepare for any possible attack, state media said.

The five-day exercise was to cover a vast area in the country's northwest, west, south and southwest, Press TV said, citing Brig. Gen. Ahmad Miqani.

Iran's regular military and its elite Revolutionary Guards were to participate in the exercise against aerial attacks, especially against Iran's nuclear plants, according to Press TV.

The report did not offer further details about the scope of the exercise, but came as world powers have been strategizing about how to deal with Iran's apparent rejection of a key part of a nuclear deal.

The United States, Russia, China, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, along with the European Union, are trying to map a way forward on Tehran's controversial nuclear program. They seek to reduce international fears that Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons.

On Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his country refused a request to send its partly enriched uranium abroad to be turned into material for medical research.

However, he said, Tehran might allow the nuclear material to be reprocessed inside Iran, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported.

The nuclear deal, hammered out in October with the help of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is aimed to reduce the amount of raw material Iran has to build a nuclear bomb.

President Obama has warned of "consequences" if Iran does not accept the plan.

Iran says it intends to produce nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes, including civilian electricity and medical research.

Iranian media reported on Saturday that, according to a senior Iranian lawmaker, the country is capable of producing partly enriched uranium up to 20 percent, but had requested to buy the fuel from other countries instead. The move was described as a sign of good will.

"Given that Iran is capable of enriching uranium to a level more than 5 percent inside the country, it could well take a step to produce the fuel for its Tehran (research) reactor," said Kazem Jalali, of the parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, according to Press TV.

However, Iran sees buying the fuel as a better option, he said.

Awash in Unintended Consequences

By Jim Hoagland

WASHINGTON -- Few things are as dangerous in the Middle East as well-intentioned outsiders. They invariably bring unintended consequences upon those they would guide to a better life. Ask Job. Or consider the case of Mahmoud Abbas, whose hurt and fury over foreign meddling has triggered his threat to quit as Palestinian leader.
No one could accuse President Barack Obama or Judge Richard Goldstone of South Africa of harboring ill will toward the president of the Palestinian Authority. But their separate worthy initiatives have resulted in pushing Abbas into a no-exit hell while lowering the chances for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

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Afghanistan is not alone. The Obama administration's wobbly approach to the Middle East peace process is also in urgent need of reassessment. Plan A -- to get concessions from Arab states to balance an Israeli freeze on settlement construction -- was abruptly abandoned after Obama was stiffed by both sides at a trilateral summit in September. Now the administration hopes to leapfrog the impasse over settlements by going straight into "final status" negotiations by getting agreement on conditional borders for an independent Palestinian state.
But the Arabs are newly upset and are moving the goal posts: They say the encouraging rhetoric of Obama's Cairo speech last June has been washed away by his failure to deliver the settlement freeze -- which has now become an Arab precondition for resuming negotiations with Israel.
Israelis, on the other hand, are newly confident of U.S. support, which rattles the Arabs even more. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu got a cold shower from Obama and congressional leaders when he visited Washington in May. He was told that he should accept the principle of a Palestinian state, which he grudgingly did last summer.
But Netanyahu emerged from a Nov. 9 White House meeting with Obama able to claim credibly that the two men had talked as allies about Middle East peace and Iran's nuclear program -- with Obama setting a new end-of-December deadline for his engagement efforts with Tehran to produce results. (That deadline had been September, and is almost certain to slip again.)
What happened in the interim? Part of the answer is Goldstone and his U.N.-commissioned report, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes during its January assault on the Gaza Strip. Stung by the accusations and prodded by Washington, the Israeli government -- which refused to cooperate with Goldstone's investigation -- is debating carrying out its own investigation of the Gaza operation.
Whatever the Goldstone report's merits -- and they are lessened by its deliberate demonization of Israel's motives and milquetoast exculpations of Hamas' actions -- it seems to have been written with no feel for the political consequences it would bring for the peace process. The report also ignored the concern it would create at the Pentagon and in other Western military headquarters with forces fighting guerrillas who use civilian populations and infrastructure as shields in modern asymmetrical warfare.
On Capitol Hill, misgivings about Netanyahu were buried in a reflexive gathering around Israel under U.N.-inspired attack. The Goldstone fracas also helped push the politically sensitive Obama White House back toward a more supportive, traditional U.S. attitude toward Israel. Abbas -- not glimpsing the quagmire he was lurching toward -- went along with Washington's request to ask the U.N. to delay taking up Goldstone's report, only to back down when Jordan and Egypt joined Hamas in unleashing ferocious criticism of Abbas in their media.
"He is hurt, and angry," says an Arab official who has talked to Abbas recently. "He has been let down by everybody, especially Egypt," which has tilted toward cooperating with Hamas at the expense of Abbas' Fatah movement in recent months. The Egyptian turn (caused more by internal succession problems than regional factors) has also antagonized Saudi Arabia, which is locked in an increasingly open and hostile war of words with Iran, Hamas' most important patron.
This is a combustible mix of betrayals, failures and intentions gone awry. So Netanyahu may yet throw Abbas a lifeline on settlements if only to keep his weakened opponent in office.
Israel's long occupation of Palestinian territory has helped produce the cynicism and weak leadership on both sides that confound would-be international shapers of peace and moral rectitude. Outsiders cannot resolve this conflict: Only an Israeli decision to end that occupation in fast order can lead to the security Israelis need and deserve, and the dignity Palestinians seek through a state of their own. That is the broader, more vital decision that Netanyahu needs to make.

High-Income Tax May Be Needed for Afghan War Cost, Levin Says

By Viola Gienger

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said higher-income Americans should be taxed to pay for additional troops sent to Afghanistan and that NATO should provide half of the new soldiers.
An “additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000,” could fund more troops, Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has estimated that each additional soldier in Afghanistan could cost $1 million, for a total that could reach $40 billion if 40,000 more troops are added.
That cost, Levin said, should be paid by wealthier taxpayers. “They have done incredibly well, and I think that it’s important that we pay for it if we possibly can” instead of increasing the federal debt load, the senator said.
Other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should bear responsibility for delivering half the additional troops needed to secure the conflict zone and train Afghan forces, Levin said. He didn’t predict how many troops President Barack Obama would add.
Levin also said Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has faced calls for his resignation from Republicans in Congress, should stay as long as he has Obama’s confidence. The six-term senator said the administration was right to move the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to federal court in New York from a military commission in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Troop Decision Near
On Afghanistan, Obama may decide within a few weeks whether to grant a request from the top commander in the field, General Stanley McChrystal, for 40,000 more troops to fight the Taliban, which harbored al-Qaeda before being toppled in the invasion following the Sept. 11 attacks. The U.S. contributes about 70,000 of the 110,000 foreign forces fighting the Afghan war.
Levin, who has supported adding U.S. troops to the war mainly to train the Afghan army and police to take over, said he might back an increase closer to 40,000 under certain conditions. They include the proportion that would be used for training, a plan for preparing enough Afghan troops and a “major program” to provide equipment to their forces.
“There’s a lot of other things involved in showing resolve beside just a troop level,” Levin said. A key element to gain support will be “that whatever is announced, it be part of a NATO-Afghan initiative,” he said.
Conditions on Aid
The U.S. also should place conditions on aid that goes through Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government to ensure that he cooperates in fighting corruption, Levin said. Karzai won re-election by default when his main challenger dropped out of a planned runoff after the first balloting in August was marred by allegations of fraud.
Levin said that while he wanted to be “hopeful” that Karzai would take steps to weed out corruption, “I’m also skeptical.”
Levin commended Pakistan’s leaders for turning more of their attention from their conflict with India to the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters sheltering near the other border with Afghanistan. Pakistan’s army and its citizens have “taken some very severe losses” in fighting the militants, he said.
“They’ve got a way to go,” Levin said.
He also praised India, saying leaders had shown “restraint” in dealing with “fanatics” who crossed over the border from Pakistan.
On the economy, Levin said Geithner has been “very helpful” on finding ways to support automakers to preserve the industry.
Tighter Regulations
The broader financial crisis has demonstrated the need for tightening regulations on Wall Street, Levin said. He called the Obama administration’s recommendations “very significant.”
“I think the failure to move forward on those reforms in the Senate is the Republican resistance to some of those proposed reforms from the administration, not Democratic resistance,” Levin said.
He also praised proposals for changes from Connecticut Democrat Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
Dodd “has put forth a very significant reform of Wall Street,” Levin said. “It is long overdue.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net

Banished at Turtle Bay

A U.N. critic has her credentials stripped.

 

As part of our public-service reports on the workings of your favorite world body, allow us to introduce you to Anne Bayefsky. The Toronto native is an expert on human-rights law and an accredited United Nations observer. She is also a friend of Israel, which makes her persona non grata as far as the folks at Turtle Bay are concerned.
Ms. Bayefsky's sin was a two-minute talk she delivered at the U.N. earlier this month after the General Assembly had issued a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report, which levels war crimes charges at Israel for defending itself in the face of Hamas's rockets. "The resolution doesn't mention the word Hamas," she said. "This is a resolution that purports to be even-handed; it is anything but."
Ms. Bayefsky's comments were the only note of criticism on a day otherwise marked by much U.N. jubilation. Whereupon she was summarily stripped of her U.N. badge and evicted from the premises. "The Palestinian ambassador is very upset by your statement," Ms. Bayefsky says the U.N. security chief told her. Journalist Matthew Russell Lee tells us that he heard the ambassador asking whether U.N. security had "captured" Ms. Bayefsky.
For the record, the U.N. claims that Ms. Bayefsky violated procedures by bringing a colleague who lacked a proper badge, and that she was not entitled to speak where she did, though representatives of nongovernment organizations have used it in the past. And when we called the Palestinian Mission to get their side of the story, they told us the fracas was the last of their worries. Maybe so.
Yet the U.N. continues to bar Ms. Bayefsky from the premises, despite calls on her behalf by the U.S. mission and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. Best-case scenario, one U.N. insider tells us, is that "they'll put her on probation." We hear the U.N.'s NGO accreditation committee, chaired by Sudan, will likely make the final decision.
Meanwhile, a committee of the General Assembly recently passed a resolution on the so-called defamation of religion. "Everyone has the right to hold opinions without interference, and has the right to freedom of expression, the exercise of which carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to limitations," it says.
"Without interference" yet "subject to limitations." Orwell should be living now.

 

Travesty in New York

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the "propaganda of the deed." And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 -- not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.
And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York. Just as the memory fades, 9/11 has been granted a second life -- and KSM, a second act: "9/11, The Director's Cut," narration by KSM.

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September 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable -- a civilian trial in the media capital of the world -- from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.
So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.
Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) "do not get convicted," asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. "Failure is not an option," replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn't the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure -- acquittal, hung jury -- is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place.
Moreover, everyone knows that whatever the outcome of the trial, KSM will never walk free. He will spend the rest of his natural life in U.S. custody. Which makes the proceedings a farcical show trial from the very beginning.
Apart from the fact that any such trial will be a security nightmare and a terror threat to New York -- what better propaganda-by-deed than blowing up the entire courtroom, making KSM a martyr and making the judge, jury and spectators into fresh victims? -- it will endanger U.S. security. Civilian courts with broad rights of cross-examination and discovery give terrorists access to crucial information about intelligence sources and methods.
That's precisely what happened during the civilian New York trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. The prosecution was forced to turn over to the defense a list of two hundred unindicted co-conspirators, including the name Osama bin Laden. "Within ten days, a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum," wrote former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the presiding judge at that trial, "letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered."
Finally, there's the moral logic. It's not as if Holder opposes military commissions on principle. On the same day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, Holder announced he was sending Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole, to a military tribunal.
By what logic? In his congressional testimony Wednesday, Holder was utterly incoherent in trying to explain. In his Nov. 13 news conference, he seemed to be saying that if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, you get a civilian trial; a military target like the Cole, and you get a military tribunal.
What a perverse moral calculus. Which is the war crime -- an attack on defenseless civilians or an attack on a military target such as a warship, an accepted act of war which the U.S. itself has engaged in countless times?
By what possible moral reasoning, then, does KSM, who perpetrates the obvious and egregious war crime, receive the special protections and constitutional niceties of a civilian courtroom, while he who attacked a warship is relegated to a military tribunal?
Moreover, the incentive offered any jihadi is as irresistible as it is perverse: Kill as many civilians as possible on American soil and Holder will give you Miranda rights, a lawyer, a propaganda platform -- everything but your own blog.
Alternatively, Holder tried to make the case that he chose a civilian New York trial as a more likely venue for securing a conviction. An absurdity: By the time Obama came to office, KSM was ready to go before a military commission, plead guilty and be executed. It's Obama who blocked a process that would have yielded the swiftest and most certain justice.
Indeed, the perfect justice. Whenever a jihadist volunteers for martyrdom, we should grant his wish. Instead, this one, the most murderous and unrepentant of all, gets to dance and declaim at the scene of his crime.
Holder himself told The Washington Post that the coming New York trial will be "the trial of the century." The last such was the trial of O.J. Simpson.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Obama’s Pacific Trip Encounters Rough Waters

By HELENE COOPER and MARTIN FACKLER
Published: November 18, 2009



SEOUL, South Korea — For all of President Obama’s laying claim to the title of “America’s first Pacific president,” Asia was always going to be a tough nut for him to crack.

Without the first lady at his side, he would not have the kind of round-the-clock coverage the first couple got during their inaugural tour of Europe.

Without a popular gesture like elevating the plight of the Palestinian people to equal status of the Israelis, he would not be showered with the kind of praise he got for his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.

And without a stop in Indonesia, his boyhood home, he would not bask in the kind of adulation he received in Accra, Ghana.

Instead, with the novelty of a visit as America’s first black president having given way to the reality of having to plow through intractable issues like monetary policy (China), trade (Singapore, China, South Korea), security (Japan) and the 800-pound gorilla on the continent (China), Mr. Obama’s Asia trip has been, in many ways, a long, uphill slog.

So it is no wonder that on the last day of the toughest part of his trip — the China part — Mr. Obama took a hike: a brisk, bracing 30-minute climb up the Great Wall. Around 3:30 Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Obama’s mile-long motorcade arrived at the Badaling section of the Great Wall, which snakes over jagged, rocky mountains.

Visitors to that touristy section of the wall generally encounter a cacophonous melee of vendors, but on this day, the place was like a ghost town, courtesy of the Chinese authorities who had shut it down. (The same thing happened Tuesday when Mr. Obama sped through an empty-but-for-his-entourage Forbidden City.)

Even the two sightseeing trips did not offer a total respite, however, as they were prominent, well-publicized examples of what Mr. Obama did not do in China. He steered clear of public meetings with Chinese liberals, free press advocates and even average Chinese, with his aides citing scheduling conflicts. Mr. Obama did, though, give an interview on Wednesday morning to Southern Weekly, one of China’s most popular newspapers, sometimes known for poking the authorities by breaking news on delicate subjects.

Still, for an American president who has tried to make openness a hallmark of his public persona, it was a departure, made more stark since Chinese authorities largely hijacked Mr. Obama’s one other attempt at a give and take with Chinese students, a town hall meeting in Shanghai, by stuffing the auditorium with young Communist Party aspirants.

A week ago, when Mr. Obama kicked off his trip in Japan, things were not so grim. Tokyo welcomed him as much as a celebrity as a world leader, with cries of “Obama-san!” from the people who gathered in the rain to watch his motorcade pass. Local newspapers gushed about how he told his Japanese hosts that he wanted to eat tuna and Kobe beef. Even the ballyhoo from right-wing bloggers back at home over Mr. Obama’s deep bow to Emperor Akihito did not seem to dent Mr. Obama’s image in Japan; his aides said he was unfazed by the criticism.

But Mr. Obama quickly discovered that popularity on the Asian streets did not necessarily translate into policy successes behind closed doors in the Kantei, the Japanese White House, let alone in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Political analysts in Japan gave Mr. Obama high marks for what was one of his principal goals: improving communication with Japan’s outspoken new leaders.

But the trip managed only to paper over some of the recent differences between the sides, like the contentious issue of the relocation of an unpopular Marine air base in Futenma, on the southern island of Okinawa. Mr. Obama and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama could not solve that issue, instead merely deferring a tough decision by agreeing to form a working group to look at the relocation problem.

One former Japanese diplomat praised the president for showing patience and avoiding mishaps that would have further tarnished the relationship. The former diplomat, Kunihiko Miyake, who now teaches international affairs at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, said the United States and Japan still did not see eye to eye on their single biggest bilateral issue: how to make their cold-war-era alliance relevant in a region where the balance of power had been upset by China’s rise.

“The two countries are in the same bed, but dreaming different dreams,” Mr. Miyake said. “The Americans want the alliance to be stronger, but the Japanese seem to want to do less.”

Mr. Obama’s next stop was Singapore for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, best known for its quaint custom of making all the leaders wear the same style of colorful shirt, helpfully supplied by the host country. Mr. Obama, in blue, wore a brave grin in the group photo, flanked by the red-shirted Singaporean prime minister and an identical blue-shirted Indonesian president.

This year, APEC made headlines, though not the sort Mr. Obama might have liked. With a deadline looming for a big climate change conference in Copenhagen, the leaders convened a hastily called breakfast meeting to acknowledge that they would not be able to resolve entrenched differences in time.

And then, Mr. Obama departed for China, where the authorities stage-managed and restricted access to his town hall meeting in Shanghai. He did offer a nuanced, oblique critique of China’s rigid controls and restrictions of the Internet and free speech without mentioning, let alone condemning, China’s government.

Mr. Obama and President Hu Jintao presented their two days of talks as substantive, even though they did not appear to make much progress on issues like Iran, China’s currency or human rights. Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, took the unusual step of sending a statement to reporters — something he did not do for either stop in Japan or Singapore — saying the China trip went well.

In Seoul, where Mr. Obama ends his trip, he will have perhaps his easiest leg. South Korea is a longtime ally that has been cooperating with the United States on vital issues like North Korea and does not appear to have any big ax to grind with the United States.

China govt pleased but ordinary folk cool on Obama

BEIJING (AP) - State media heralded President Barack Obama's maiden trip to China as a triumph, but ordinary Chinese were largely shielded by their government from his most critical remarks and activists were disappointed by the measured tone of those they did hear.

One blogger even pined for the tough line taken by former President George W. Bush.

"Like a star rushing from one show to another, Obama has come and gone, without stirring the slightest ripples," blogger Zhao Dezhu wrote in an online post.

Zhao, who writes a popular blog and twitters under the name Hecaitou, said the visit made him miss Bush who "couldn't speak with flowery language and even made grammatical mistakes but spoke as plainly as an American farmer."

Obama, by contrast, speaks "with sweet but empty words."

State media portrayed the two-and-a-half day trip as a slam-dunk for China-U.S. relations, saying a joint statement issued by Obama and China's President Hu Jintao was a breakthrough to inspire the world.

"The Sino-U.S. Joint Statement is as worthy as gold," trumpeted the state-run 21st Century Business Herald while the Beijing Post said it set "a good example for many other bilateral relations."

Among regular folk, there was no such sizzle.

Maybe it was the rain in Shanghai or the below freezing temperatures in Beijing, but crowds did not line the streets to catch a glimpse of the president's motorcade—a marked difference from the well-wishers who have clamored to see Obama in Europe.

Obama does have a following in China, particularly among youth who see him as an exciting contrast to China's staid leadership, but his visit seems to have had little affect on even those who like him—possibly because many of his comments were not widely disseminated.

Several young people interviewed Wednesday said they admired Obama, but none had seen his town hall-style meeting in Shanghai and they based their opinions on photos, state media coverage, or things they'd read about him before. They had little to say about his visit specifically.

"He has a big fan club among the young people of China, because many of us have seen the adversity he has gone through and we look up to him for inspiration," Li Yuanyuan, a 24-year-old office worker said during her lunch break in downtown Beijing.

Han Xuanke, 29, an employee of a technology firm in Beijing's business district said he was more interested in Obama than he had been in Bush or former President Bill Clinton.

"He represents energy and something new and exciting that Chinese politicians don't have," Han said.

The town hall was intended to let the president mix with people like Han and Li, but Beijing ensured it was a tightly scripted affair that few people were able to see because it was only broadcast on one regional television channel.

Obama's strongest comments during the town hall were directed at China's Internet controls.

"I'm a big supporter of non-censorship," Obama said. "I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet—or unrestricted Internet access—is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged."

The critical remarks were played down in the Chinese media and scrubbed from some Chinese Web sites.

The event was streamed live on the White House Web site, but the connection was choppy and delayed. The State Department said later more than 7,000 Chinese Internet users watched the event—a tiny fraction of the more than 300 million Chinese who are online.

Chinese bloggers who saw it were grateful that he addressed censorship, but many zeroed in on what they considered Obama's waffling language.

"Learn English from Obama: Instead of saying 'I want to eat,' say 'I am a big supporter of non-hunger,'" Wang Pei, a writer based in eastern China's Hangzhou, twittered on Tuesday.

Many were watching the town hall closely for how Obama would handle China's poor human rights record, especially after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in February that the United States would not let such concerns interfere with cooperation with Beijing on global crises.

Obama spoke broadly about basic freedoms but steered clear of the buzz phrase "human rights." The next day, he more pointedly raised the issue during a media appearance with President Hu, even touching on rights for minorities—a particular sore spot in China, where Tibetans and Muslim Uighurs seek more autonomy.

"We do not believe these principles are unique to America, but rather they are universal rights and that they should be available to all peoples, to all ethnic and religious minorities," Obama said.

Xue Chen, a research fellow of Strategic Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said Obama's measured tone on such sensitive topics was a positive development that showed a rethinking of U.S. foreign policy since Bush.

"They are now more willing to take the role of a listener. And only in this way can the U.S. interests be better met," he said.

For many mainland activists, however, the approach fell short.

Yang Zili, a Chinese dissident recently freed after eight years in prison for forming a political study group, had been expecting something stronger from Obama.

"Although Obama mentioned some words such as 'rights' and 'freedom' in the speech in Shanghai, we expect he can do more to promote the improvement of China's human rights condition," he said.

Zhang Jian, a 30-year-old office worker from north China's Inner Mongolia region said many Chinese were taking a wait-and-see approach to the new leader.

"It's a trip Obama needs to make. ... But I don't think we're necessarily going to immediately warm up to the U.S. as a result of one trip," said Zhang who was visiting Beijing on business. "It will be a relationship built over mutual trust and understanding over time."

___

Associated Press writer Chi-Chi Zhang and researcher Xi Yue contributed to this report.

Eric Holder's Grave Mistake

By Michael Gerson

WASHINGTON -- Eric Holder -- distinguished prosecutor, judge, foe of public corruption, basketball enthusiast, mentor to disadvantaged youth -- seemed a reassuring choice for attorney general. When Holder affirmed during his confirmation hearing that America remains at war with terrorists, Sen. Lindsey Graham enthused, "I'm almost ready to vote for you right now."
So how did Holder become the most destructive member of Barack Obama's Cabinet?

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Holder launched his tenure by showing disdain for the work of career federal prosecutors when it fit his ideological predispositions. In 2004, a task force from the Eastern District of Virginia investigated allegations of misconduct against the CIA and found insufficient evidence of criminal conduct or intent. Holder ignored the views of these respected prosecutors and appointed his own special prosecutor, appeasing a political constituency that wanted the CIA to be hounded and punished. As a result, morale at a front-line agency in the war on terror has plunged. What possible reason could a bright, ambitious intelligence professional have to pursue a career in counterterrorism when the attorney general of the United States is stubbornly intent on exposing and undermining his colleagues?
Now Holder is displaying an exaggerated respect for the work of career federal prosecutors in New York, also when it fits his ideological predispositions. He is asking them to make the case against five 9/11 conspirators, in a circus atmosphere, with an uncertain chain of evidence (gathered on a battlefield), under a cloud of torture allegations that Holder himself has encouraged.
There is one serious argument for this course: that a civilian court will provide greater legitimacy for the imposition of the death penalty than a military tribunal. But the guilt of these terrorists is not in question. And it is difficult to imagine that those repulsed or impressed by Khalid Sheik Mohammed's confessed crimes will care much about the procedures surrounding his sentencing.
In exchange for a marginal public relations advantage, America will be subjected to the airing of intelligence sources and methods, to the posturing of mass murderers fully aware of their terrorist star power, to the possibility of mistrial and procedural acquittal, and to an increased threat of revenge attacks against New York City. Holder seemed to concede this last complication by asserting that New York is "hardened" against possible terrorism. If I were a New Yorker, that would fall into the category of chilly comfort.
In the end, Holder made a decision memorable for its incoherence. He declared American military tribunals constitutional and appropriate for some terrorists -- then awarded 9/11 mastermind Mohammed a presumption of innocence and the full O.J. Simpson treatment.
In the original plan for the terrorist attacks, according to the report of the 9/11 Commission, Mohammed was supposed to be on the only hijacked plane that landed. He would kill all the males aboard, then make a dramatic speech to the world. At his trial, he will now get his wish.
Holder's choices do not reflect the normal policy shifts between administrations. It is not typical that seven former directors of the CIA have publicly denounced Holder's assault on the institution they served. It is not typical that Holder's immediate predecessor, Michael Mukasey, has called the plan for trials in Manhattan a risky "social experiment" that will raise the risk of attack "very high." Something unique and frightening is taking place: The ACLU is effectively being put in charge of the war on terror.
Holder contends that if people will "in a neutral and detached way, look at the decision ... and try to do something rare in Washington -- leave the politics out of it and focus on what's in the best interest of this country -- I think the criticism will be relatively muted." Holder clearly views himself as Atticus Finch, dispassionately defending the rule of law against the howling mob. In fact, Holder is taking the legal path blazed by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who defined legal objectivity as indifference to the soiled interests of his country. Holder's liberal principles have become "detached" from the real-world struggle against terrorism: Let justice be done, though the heavens, and buildings, fall.
Wartime American presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt have understood that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. So enemy combatants consistently have been judged by a different and harsher legal standard than American citizens. Whatever his initial assurances, Holder does not believe America is at war with terrorists. Even worse, he seems determined to undermine those who do.

Graham Presses Holder On Reading Osama Bin Laden Miranda Rights

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: "If you're gonna prosecute anybody in civilian court, our law is clear that the moment custodial interrogation occurs, the defendant, the criminal defendant, is entitled to a lawyer and to be informed of their right to remain silent. The big problem I have is you're criminalizing the war, that if we caught bin Laden tomorrow, we have mixed theories and couldn't turn him over to the CIA, the FBI, military intelligence for an interrogation on the battlefield, because now you're saying he's subject to criminal court in the United States and you're confusing the people fighting this war."

Poll: Most Oppose Terror Trials in Open Court

(CBS)

The Obama administration appears to be going against public opinion with its decision to try five terrorist suspects – including self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – in a civilian trial in New York City.

A new CBS News poll finds that only 40 percent of Americans believe suspected terrorists should be tried in an open criminal court. Fifty-four percent say such suspects should be tried in a closed military court.

There is a correlation between where people stand on the trials and their political beliefs. Roughly six in ten Republicans and independents favor closed military trials, while 54 percent of Democrats prefer open civilian trials.

Read the Complete Poll

The suspects have been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, which the Obama administration has promised to close. Americans have become increasingly resistant to doing so, according to the poll: fifty percent now say the facility should be kept open, while 39 percent back the administration's plan to close it.

Americans were more split in February, when 46 percent wanted the facility kept open and 44 percent wanted it closed.

A majority of Democrats want to see the Guantanamo Bay facility closed, while a majority of Republicans and independents want it kept open.