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By Andrew North
The US Department of Defense has admitted having contact with a former US soldier, Jonathan Idema, charged in Afghanistan with torturing civilians.
But it says it rejected Mr Idema’s offer to work together in capturing terror suspects in Afghanistan.
Mr Idema - who was arrested by Afghan security agents in July - says his operation was approved by the US.
He and two other US citizens are being tried for torture, kidnapping and running a private jail in Kabul. (…)

More Americans Living in Poverty and Without Health Insurance in 2003, Census Bureau Reports
Democrats took aim at President Bush’s economic record after release of a Census Bureau report showing the ranks of the uninsured and the impoverished grew in 2003 for the third consecutive year while incomes stayed level.
The president’s surrogates came to his defense, noting that the numbers failed to reflect more recent economic gains, such as the addition of 1.5 million jobs over the past 12 (…)

A swiftboat crewman decorated in the 1969 Vietnam incident where John Kerry won a Bronze Star says not only did they come under enemy fire but also that his own boat commander, who has challenged the official account, was too distracted to notice the gunfire.
Retired Chief Petty Officer Robert E. Lambert, of Eagle Point, Ore., got a Bronze Star for pulling his boat commander - Lt. Larry Thurlow - out of the Bay Hap River on March 13, 1969. Thurlow had jumped onto another swiftboat to aid (…)

President Bush acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that he had miscalculated post-war conditions in Iraq, the New York Times reported.
The paper quoted Bush as saying during a 30-minute interview that he made "a miscalculation of what the conditions would be" in post-war Iraq.
But he insisted that the 17-month-long insurgency was the unintended by-product of a "swift victory" against Saddam Hussein’s military, the Times reported.
Bush said his strategy had been "flexible (…)

By Michael Georgy
NAJAF, Iraq - Tens of thousands of chanting Iraqi Shi’ites converged on a holy shrine in Najaf on Friday, where some rebels began handing in weapons after a peace deal was reached overnight to end a three-week uprising.
Many pilgrims, supporters of revered cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who brokered the peace agreement, were overcome with emotion outside the rebel-held Imam Ali mosque. Some kissed the outer wall and wept before the militants allowed them in. (…)

Americans have one last chance to show their opposition to this war
by Naomi Klein
I’ve been here a week now, watching the city prepare for the Republican national convention and the accompanying protests. Much is predictable: tabloid hysteria about an anarchist siege; cops showing off their new crowd-control toys; fierce debates about whether the demonstrations will hurt the Republicans or inadvertently help them.
What surprises me is what isn’t here: Najaf. It’s nowhere to be found. (…)

ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
http://www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545
To subscribe, visit
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/email
============================================
AUGUST 29, THE WORLD SAYS NO TO THE BUSH AGENDA!
Massive Protest at the Republican National Convention, New York City
* Assemble at 10:00AM, Seventh Avenue @ 14th Street
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UFPJ ANNOUNCES FULL MARCH ROUTE FOR AUG. 29 * Map: (…)

By Michael Conlon
ANOKA, Minn - Democrat John Kerry on Thursday challenged Republican President Bush, to weekly debates from now until the Nov. 2 presidential election.
"America deserves a serious discussion about its future. It does not deserve a campaign of fear and smear," the Massachusetts senator told a crowd at a community college near Minneapolis. The campaign said the audience was chosen from undecided voters.
He said he was prepared to have a discussion with Bush "every single (…)

HALLIBURTON Co., rivaling Enron as the poster child for bad corporate behavior and closely associated with its former chief, Vice President Dick Cheney, has done it again. The Pentagon first decided, in accordance with federal procurement rules, to withhold, effective Sunday, 15 percent of payments to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root until the defense contractor could justify its bills.
Then the Army Materiel Command, which oversees the contract, reversed itself and decided (…)

By GENARO C. ARMAS
WASHINGTON - Some Democrats claim the Bush administration, in the midst of a fierce re-election battle, is trying to play down expected bad news from Census Bureau reports on poverty and health insurance by releasing them about a month earlier than usual.
The annual reports show how many people are in poverty, the median household income and how many are without health insurance. They normally are released separately in late September - one report on poverty and (…)