Legion of Angels News Archive

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Wednesday warned Americans and lawmakers reluctant to pass a $700 billion financial rescue plan that failing to act fast risks wiping out retirement savings, rising foreclosures, lost jobs and closed businesses. “Our entire economy is in danger,” he said.

His dire warning came not long after the president issued extraordinary invitations to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, one of whom will inherit the mess in four months, as well as key congressional leaders to a White House meeting on Thursday to work on a compromise.

“Without immediate action by Congress, American could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold,” Bush said in a 12-minute prime-time address from the White House East Room that he hoped would help rescue his tough-sell bailout package.

Bush explicitly endorsed several of the changes that have been demanded in recent days from the right and left. But he warned that he would draw the line at regulations he determined would hamper economic growth.

“It should be enacted as soon as possible,” the president said.

The bailout, which the Bush administration asked Congress last weekend to approve before it adjourns, is meeting with deep skepticism, especially from conservatives in Bush’s own party who are revolting at the high price tag and unprecedented private-sector intervention. Though there is general agreement that something must be done to address the spiraling economic problems, the timing and even the size of the package remained in doubt and the administration has been forced to accept changes almost daily.

Seeking to explain himself to conservatives, Bush stressed he was reluctant to put taxpayer money on the line to help businesses that had made bad decisions and that the rescue is not aimed at saving individual companies. He tried to address some of the major complaints from Democrats by promising that CEOs of failed companies won’t be rewarded.

“With the situation becoming more precarious by the day, I faced a choice: to step in with dramatic government action or to stand back and allow the irresponsible actions by some to undermine the financial security of all,” Bush said. “These are not normal circumstances.”

The president turned himself into an economics professor for much of the address, tracing the origins of the problem back a decade to a large influx of money into the U.S. system from overseas, low interest rates, the “faulty assumption” that home values would continue to skyrocket, easy lending by mortgage companies, over-borrowing by home owners and exuberant building by construction firms.

But while generally acknowledging risky and poorly thought-out financial decisions at many levels of society, Bush never assigned blame to any specific entity, such as his administration, the quasi-indepedent mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or the Wall Street firms that built rising profits on increasingly speculative mortgage-backed securities. Instead, he spoke in terms of investment banks that “found themselves saddled with” toxic assets and banks that “found themselves” with questionable balance sheets.

Intensive, personal wheeling and dealing is not usually Bush’s style as president, unlike some predecessors. He does not often call or meet with individual lawmakers to push a legislative priority.

But with the nation facing the biggest financial meltdown in decades, Bush took the unusual step of calling Democrat Obama personally about the meeting, said presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino. White House aides extended the invitations to Republican McCain and to GOP and Democratic leaders from Capitol Hill.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the senator would attend and “will continue to work in a bipartisan spirit and do whatever is necessary to come up with a final solution.” Senior McCain advisers said McCain will attend, too. The plans of the other invitees were unknown, and the exact details of the meeting, which Perino said was aimed at making fast progress to stem the biggest financial meltdown in decades, were still being set.

In another move welcome at the White House, Obama and McCain issued a joint statement urging lawmakers — in dire terms — to act.

“Now is a time to come together Democrats and Republicans in a spirit of cooperation for the sake of the American people,” it said. “The plan that has been submitted to Congress by the Bush administration is flawed, but the effort to protect the American economy must not fail.”

The two candidates — bitterly fighting each other for the White House but coming together over this issue — said the situation offers a chance for politicians to prove Washington’s worth.

“This is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country. We cannot risk an economic catastrophe,” they said.

However, the Oval Office rivals were not putting politics aside entirely. McCain asked Obama to agree to delay their first debate, scheduled for Friday, to deal with the meltdown. Obama said the debate should go ahead.

Bush last gave a prime-time address to the nation 377 days ago, on Iraq. This one, carried live by all five major television outlets, could be the last of his presidency.

White House and administration officials have warned repeatedly of a coming “financial calamity.”

But that has not closed the deal, which for many recalls previous warnings of grave threats from Bush — such as before the Iraq war — that did not materialize. So Bush’s goal with his speech was to frame the debate in layman’s terms to show the depths of the crisis, explain how it affects the people’s daily lives and inspire the public to demand action from Washington.

He said that more banks could fail, the stock market could plummet and erase retirement accounts, businesses could find it hard to get credit and be forced to close, wiping out jobs for millions of Americans.

“Ultimately, our country could experience a long and painful recession,” Bush said. “Fellow citizens, we must not let this happen.”

But he ended on a positive note, predicting lawmakers would “rise to the occasion” and that the nation’s economy will overcome “a moment of great challenge.”

Through the crisis, the White House has struggled over how to deploy Bush.

As the problem mushroomed over the weekend of Sept. 13, Bush generally stayed out of the limelight, letting Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke take the lead with reporters, lawmakers and the public. Bush remained silent for days.

Since last Thursday, however, the president has talked about the crisis almost daily, although usually briefly, and yet he still has had trouble breaking into the debate. News coverage has barely mentioned Bush’s comments.

The decision to pull out perhaps a president’s largest available weapon — the ability to demand a presence on evening television screens nationwide, from a setting with the ultimate bully-pulpit power — is one sign that the rescue package still faced daunting hurdles.

With so many crises hitting the United States at once, the presidential race has taken a back seat and so has Bush’s involvement in politics. Bush canceled a fundraising trip to Florida on Wednesday to deal with the problem, the third time in a week that he has scrapped his attendance at out-of-town fundraisers, either because of the market turmoil or Hurricane Ike.

The economic crisis also is almost certain to overshadow the rest of Bush’s four months left in office and could hugely impact his legacy. It has been assumed that the long-term view of Bush’s presidency was to be shaped largely by Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Now, the dire economic problems and the aftermath of the government’s attempted solution will certainly be added to that list.

Source — Yahoo!

WASHINGTON - None of us will ever forget this day.

That’s what President Bush said on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001. The country felt the same way.

But something fundamental has changed since then, and it says as much about Bush’s mindset as any part of his presidency.

He still lives Sept. 11, not as a memory, but in the present tense. It drives his decision-making, his politics, his legacy.

“He wakes up every day thinking about it and goes to bed thinking about it,” Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

But the country is an entirely different place.

The fears and feelings of that day aren’t fresh. They’re fading. A raft of new polling shows that most people do not worry that terrorists will strike again soon. Most Americans don’t fear that they or their family will be a victim of an attack.

Terrorism is still a concern, but as few as 1 percent of people polled chose it as the biggest problem facing the country today. That’s a pittance compared to economic fears.

Of course the memory still burns for those who lost family and friends on Sept. 11, and for those who fled the falling buildings.

Yet for most everyone else, it comes up like a sharp pain this time of year, then goes away about as fleetingly.

And that has created a striking contrast between the president and the people.

Bush was once the one who successfully encouraged people to move on from Sept. 11. Now he tries to keep them from forgetting it.

“No matter how calm it may seem here in America, an enemy lurks,” the president said this spring. He was speaking in defense of warrantless wiretapping on terror suspects, but has used similar refrains in backing interrogation techniques, the war in Iraq, and the whole way he goes about his job.

That lesson of Sept. 11 imbues so many of his speeches that, at this point in his presidency, the warning almost gets taken for granted.

People have moved on.

Since the attacks, the country has seen the onset of two wars, Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the housing market. The nation is eager for the election between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. Human nature has long kicked in.

After all, as Bush reminded the nation in great detail on Thursday, there has been no attack on U.S. soil in 2,557 days.

That’s a success story for the country and for Bush’s administration. It’s also the reason why terrorism is no longer paramount in people’s minds.

The president predicted this day would come.

“I knew that right after the attacks, the American psyche being what it is, people would tend to forget the grave threat posed by these people. I knew that,” Bush told an audience of troops in early 2007. “As a matter of fact, I was hoping that would happen so that life would go on.”

Yet these days, Bush sees danger in those fading memories — less support and less vigilance in a war against plotting killers.

“The temptation is to kind of say, well, maybe this isn’t really a war. Maybe this is just a bunch of disgruntled folks that occasionally come and hurt us,” he said in the Rose Garden this summer. “You know, that’s not the way I feel about it.”

When Bush scoffs at those who might minimize terrorism as a law enforcement matter, he’s targeting Democratic opponents. Politics are part of this, too. He made national security the centerpiece of his re-election campaign.

Polls show Americans favor McCain over Obama in confronting terrorism, mirroring a traditional election trend. If people are thinking about national security when they go to the polls, Republicans are most likely to gain.

Bush made the point this way in his speech to the Republican National Convention: “We need a president who understands the lessons of September the 11th, 2001: that to protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again.”

The implication was that Obama would do the opposite.

The presidential reminders of Sept. 11 come up in many ways.

“Remember, when I mention al-Qaida, they’re the ones who attacked the United States of America and killed nearly 3,000 people on September the 11th, 2001,” Bush said last year.

When the war in Iraq reached its own grim anniversary this year — five years and counting — Bush raised Sept. 11 again.

The independent Sept. 11 commission found no collaborative linkage between the two, but to Bush, a broader struggle unites them. Failing in Iraq, he said, would be “to ignore the lessons of September the 11th and make it more likely that America would suffer another attack.”

At times, Bush seems almost to lament how little Sept. 11 is on the public’s mind.

He is still responsible for stopping another attack. And his reminders are, in fact, daily.

Bush begins his workday listening to intelligence experts describe fresh threats to the country. The public, of course, never hears or sees those confidential briefings. But the leaders of the intelligence community have been blunt in public that the terror threat remains real.

Their message to Congress and the country: Don’t forget Sept. 11.

Bush hasn’t.

“Even when he’s not president anymore,” Perino said, “I am sure that he will think about it every day.”

Source — Yahoo!

WASHINGTON - President Bush has secretly approved U.S. military raids inside anti-terror ally Pakistan, according to current and former U.S. officials. The high-risk gambit prizes the death or capture of al-Qaida and Taliban extremists over the sensitivities of a shaky U.S.-backed civilian government that does not want to seem like Washington’s lapdog.

Bush acted in July to give U.S. forces greater leeway to cross from outposts in Afghanistan into the rugged area along the Pakistan border. Pakistan’s central government has little control in this area, where extremists have found what U.S. officials say is a comfortable safe haven.

Already frustrated with what the U.S. perceived as a balky and incomplete commitment to hunting militants seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said the last straw came when it appeared Pakistani authorities were passing tips to militants.

One official familiar with South Asia policy said the new rules were adopted in response to increasing problems with U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism cooperation — particularly evidence that Pakistan’s intelligence service, known as the ISI, had been compromised by militants and that some ISI elements were helping extremists. The official said extremists got Pakistani help before an attack July 7 on the Indian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

“Up to that point, the idea was to share intelligence with the Pakistanis and then proceed but there was a lot of frustration with delays and problems, including leaks to militants, in sharing the intelligence,” the official said.

“This (the new order) is a reaction to that and it was sped up by the revelations about the penetration of the Pakistani intelligence service,” the official said. “It was decided that we had no choice but to free up the hands of our commanders.”

Current and former U.S. officials described Bush’s orders covering special operations and conventional forces on condition of anonymity because “execute orders” are classified. The order was first reported in Thursday’s New York Times.

The Associated Press reported in early August that senior U.S. intelligence and military aides were pressing Bush to give American soldiers greater flexibility to operate against al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in Pakistan — for example, sending U.S. special forces teams into the tribal areas to hit high-value targets.

The “rules of engagement” have been loosened now, allowing troops to conduct border attacks without being fired on first if they witness attacks coming from the region, according to a former U.S. official with recent access to administration thinking. That would include artillery, rockets and mortar fire from the Pakistan side of the border.

A senior U.S. military official last week confirmed that a U.S. Special Forces attack had taken place about a mile across Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, killing at least 15. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because the internal debate over the U.S. response to rising violence along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border includes discussion of classified intelligence.

That Sept. 4 raid was the first use of the new authority, which allows military teams to target suspected terrorists in the dangerous area along the Afghanistan border, the officials said. At the same time, the administration secretly has given conventional ground troops greater latitude to pursue militants across the Afghan border into Pakistan, they said.

The focus is on militant havens that have grown on Pakistan’s side of the border at the same time a resurgent Taliban has increased attacks inside Afghanistan. The situation led Bush on Wednesday to commit to sending more troops there. Washington wants Pakistan to do more to crack down on its side of the border.

Pakistan’s inability or unwillingness to mount a counterinsurgency campaign inside the tribal area was discussed at a National Security Council meeting this week, according to notes of the meeting provided to the AP. The notes said Pakistan is still focused on fighting India and is “still denying the counterinsurgency problem.”

Top U.S. and Pakistani military officials held a secret strategy session in August on an aircraft carrier off Pakistan to discuss the problem.

Bush’s decision to approve cross-border attacks without alerting Islamabad appears to undercut Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari days after his election. Zardari, widower of assassinated Pakistani political figure Benazir Bhutto, was chosen last week to replace Pervez Musharraf, who had been Washington’s point man in Pakistan. Musharraf resigned under pressure in August, done in partly by the perception that he was too close to Washington and took his orders from Bush.

Zardari and other politicians have called the cross-border attacks unacceptable and a violation of their country’s sovereignty.

U.S. counterterrorism operations along the border are highly unpopular in Pakistan. Many people in that country, including some now in government, think military action only invites further extremism.

Pakistan’s prime minister on Thursday backed a harsh rebuke of the U.S. by the Muslim nation’s military chief, a sign of a strain in the anti-terrorism partnership forged after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the powerful but media-shy army leader, said nearly a week after the American-led ground assault that Pakistan would defend its sovereignty and that there was no deal to allow foreign forces to operate inside its borders.

He said unilateral actions risked undermining joint efforts to battle Islamic extremism and warned that “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost.”

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, in comments reported Thursday by state media and confirmed by his office, said Kayani’s words reflected government opinion and policy.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he will press Pakistan to allow U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan to take a new approach to hunting Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants who slip back and forth between the neighboring nations. But Brown offered no specifics on how the border could be better defended.

The U.S. forces were apparently seeking specific Taliban or al-Qaida leaders. The senior U.S. military official said the assault targeted “individuals who were clearly associated with attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.”

Source — Yahoo!

BEIJING - President Bush sharply criticized Moscow’s harsh military crackdown in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, saying Monday that the violence is unacceptable and Russia’s response is disproportionate.

The United States is waging an all-out campaign to press Russia to halt its retaliation against Georgia for trying to take control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

“I’ve expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia,” Bush said in an interview with NBC.

On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States.”

Russia battled Georgian forces on land and sea, reports said late Sunday, despite a Georgian cease-fire offer and its claim to be withdrawing from South Ossetia.

U.S. officials said Moscow was only broadening its retaliation against Georgia for trying to take control of the region.

The sheer scope of Russia’s military response has the Bush administration deeply worried. Russia on Sunday expanded its bombing blitz in areas of Georgia not central to the fighting.

‘Solidarity with the Georgian people’
Cheney spoke Sunday afternoon with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Cheney press secretary Lee Ann McBride said. “The vice president expressed the United States’ solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” McBride said.

White House officials refused to indicate what recourse the United States might have if the military onslaught continues.

A Russian official said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday; the figure could not be confirmed independently.

The president was to end his weeklong stay to Asia by attending a baseball game and other events Monday at the Beijing Olympics. The trip was meant mostly for fun and games — there have been plenty of both. But the fast-moving conflict in Georgia has commanded his attention.

Leaning on allies
Bush, pressing international mediation, reached out Sunday to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who heads the European Union. The two agreed on the need for a cease-fire and a respect for Georgia’s integrity, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Georgia, whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that pounded the provincial capital, Tskhinvali. In response, Russia launched overwhelming artillery shelling and air attacks on Georgian troops.

“We’re alarmed by this entire situation, and every escalatory step is a further problem,” deputy national security adviser Jim Jeffrey told reporters.

The U.S. military began flying 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq after Georgia recalled the soldiers following the outbreak of fighting with Russia. The decision was a timely payback for the former Soviet republic that has been a staunch U.S. supporter and agreed to send troops to Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition. Georgia was the third-largest contributor of coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain, and most of its troops were stationed near the Iranian border in southeastern Iraq.

Bush visits Chinese church
The risk of the conflict setting off a wider war increased when Russian-supported separatists in another breakaway region of Georgia, Abkhazia, launched air and artillery strikes on Georgian troops to drive them out of a small part of the province they control.

Also, Ukraine warned Russia it could bar Russian navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia’s coast.

The White House sought to reassure that the administration — including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen — were talking to parties on both sides and trying for a diplomatic solution.

Bush also tended to relations with China, again raising raised concerns to President Hu Jintao about how the host of the summer Olympics treats its own people.

Bush worshipped at a Beijing church and declared China has nothing to fear from expressions of faith. The message had the added punch of coming on China’s turf, as Bush has done before.

He managed time for a couple of marquee sporting events. With first lady Laura Bush, daughter Barbara and former President George H.W. Bush, he cheered from the stands of the Water Cube Olympic swimming venue. American Michael Phelps claimed the first of an expected string of gold medals by smashing his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley.

Source — MSNBC

BEIJING – As U.S. President George W. Bush worshipped with his family in Kuanjie Protestant Church here yesterday, Liu Peiqin was out front on Di’anmen Ave. E. with a few hundred other faithful, wishing she could be inside.

“This is pitiful,” the 60-something Christian woman said. “I live far away and came here because I wanted to share prayers and worship God with President Bush.”

But on arrival here yesterday, she learned the special early morning service was by invitation only.

Liu doesn’t actually belong to the Kuanjie congregation. But she does belong to something called the “home church” movement; she is precisely the type of independent believer for whom Bush has been calling all week for greater religious freedom in China.

Kuanjie Protestant Church is a state-approved, state-registered church, operating under the watchful eye of a government-controlled association.

By contrast, the “home church” movement to which Liu belongs is not approved by the government – and, as a consequence, is frequently persecuted by it.

In a country where the Communist party seeks to control just about everything – even religious belief – independent religious movements are sometimes seen as potential threats.

Nevertheless, Bush used his Sunday worship to continue to press for greater religious freedom in China.

He sat with wife Laura, daughter Barbara and father George H.W. Bush, in a pew in the upper left nave of the sanctuary and heard a children’s choir sing “Amazing Grace” in both English and Chinese.

Afterwards he emerged smiling on the steps of the church with a group of Chinese worshippers – one of whom he’d slung his arm around – and announced, “Laura and I just had the great joy and privilege of worshipping here in Beijing.

“You know, it just goes to show that God is universal and God is love, and no state, man or woman should fear the influence of loving religion.”

Later, before lunching with Chinese President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders, Bush told the media he had enjoyed a moment of “full spirituality.”

According to Article 36 of the Chinese constitution, “religious belief” is not a privilege, but a right.

However, the state recognizes just five official religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism. To practise any other faith in China is illegal.

Still, by anyone’s measure, it’s an improvement.

After Mao Zedong created what the Chinese call “the New China,” in 1949, all religious belief was suppressed. Even today, the Communist party remains officially atheist and its members are prohibited from holding religious beliefs.

But following Mao’s death in 1976 and the eventual ascendance of Deng Xiaoping, who initiated the Reform and Opening policy of 1978, religious belief was gradually tolerated and today Christianity is flourishing – although under strict government supervision.

The government estimates there are 130 million Christians in China today, or 10 per cent of China’s 1.3 billion population. In 1949, there were 8 million to 9 million.

And last year, a surprising survey by two Shanghai sociologists estimated that more than 31 per cent of all Chinese 16 and older hold “religious beliefs.”

Following yesterday’s service, 73-year-old Li Shiyong said he was thrilled Bush had come to the church – he and his 13-year-old granddaughter, Li Meige, got to shake the president’s hand.

“It was a blessing from God,” the former railway baggage handler declared afterwards.

But among the throngs of people on the street waiting for the president’s cavalcade to speed off so they could enter and begin their worship, not everyone was a fan.

“The elder Bush – he is a very kind man,” said Li Qishou, an articulate 87-year-old who proclaimed he had been a Christian for “70 years.”

And the president?

“I’m not a fan,” Li said, agitation growing in his voice. “He killed the most, according to the newspapers I read. And whether or not he’ll be saved by God is open to question.”

Source — The Star