James Devaney searches through the debris of his daughter Becky Coleman's home in Lawrence County, Ala., Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008. She was killed along with her son and husband (AP Photo/The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr.)

by Mark Silva and updated

With word that more than 50 people have fallen victim to tornadoes which blasted several southern states while much of the nation was watching a powerful presidential campaign play out, President Bush pledged swift help today for the tornado-stricken.

The president, who has grown acutely attentive to tornadoes and bridge collapses since the controversy over Hurricane Katrina, said he had telephoned the governors of five states this morning. The president plans to fly to Tennessee on Friday.

Bush acknowledged the catastrophe at the start of a swearing-in ceremoney for Ed Schafer of North Dakota, the new secretary of agriculture, at the Agriculture Department.

"This is a bad storm that affected a lot of people in a variety of states,'' Bush said. "Our administration is reaching out to state officials. I just called the governors of the affected states.

"I wanted them to know that this government will help them; but more importantly, I wanted them to be able to tell the people in their states that the American people hold them up and -- hold those who suffer up in prayer,'' the president said. "Loss of life, a lot of loss of property -- prayers can help and so can the government.

"And so today before we begin this important ceremony, I do want the people in those states to know the American people are standing with them.''

by John Crewdson

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois has given CIA director Mike Hayden a letter seeking information about the agency's taping of a terrorist interrogation reported by the Tribune today. See the letter below and the story behind it in today's Tribune:

Durbin also sent letters to Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: Download file Download file

by Mark Silva and updated

Water-boarding worked wonders in the case of one al-Qaeda leader, according to a former CIA agent who has made the rounds of some television news interviews as CIA director Mike Hayden prepares to testify before a congressional committee today about his agency’s destruction of videotapes of interrogations.

The controversial interrogation technique that simulates drowning also was approved at the highest levels of the government, former agent John Kiriakou, a leader of the team that captured al Qaeda’s Abu Zubaydah, has told network news interviewers. And that water-boarding, Kiriakou has said, produced instant results: Abu Zubaydah started talking in less than 35 seconds.

“The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told in to cooperate,’’ Kiriakou told ABC News World News in interview aired last night. “From that day on, he answered every question. The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.’’

While he hasn’t explained how he knows the technique – which many call torture – was approved at the highest levels, he told NBC News' Today Show this morning: “This isn't something done willy nilly. This isn't something where an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he's going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner. This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department."

Any time water-boarding or another harsh tactic was employed, he said, agents had to present a “well-laid out, well-thought out reason" to top government officials, Kiriakou said.

The White House, continuing to refuse to discuss the details of any interrogation tactics and declining to comment on the agent's report about water-boarding, insisted that the government is following the law in the interrogation of suspected terrorists.

“All interrogations have been done within the legal framework that was set out after Sept. 11,’’ Dana Perino, White House press secretary, said today. “They have been measures that are tough and limited, and they have been very effective…I do not comment on any specific technique... I can say that any interrogations have been legal, and they have been fully briefed to the United States Congress.’’

by Mark Silva

Frances Fragos Townsend, homeland security adviser to President Bush since May 2004, will leave the White House, the president announced today.

Townsend, who had gone to the White House from the U. S. Coast Guard, where she served as assistant commandant for intelligence, has overseen the domestic war on terrorism for the president. She also spearheaded the investigation of what went wrong with relief and recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and produced a report in 2006, Hurricane Katrina, Lessons Learned.

Townsend, who had spent 13 years at the Department of Justice, started as a federal prosecutor in 1985, working as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn. She is said to be leaving in pursuit of a "private sector opportunities'' – as many other senior members of the Bush administration have left near the start of the president's final year in office.

"Over the past four and a half years, Fran Townsend has served my administration with distinction as Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism,'' Bush said in a statement this morning.

“Fran has always provided wise counsel on how to best protect the American people from the threat of terrorism,'' the president said. "She has been a steady leader in the effort to prevent and disrupt attacks and to better respond to natural disasters.''

Dana Perino, White House press secretary, said Townsend "will pursue some private-sector opportunities.

"She does intend to remain very active in the public debate about counterterrorism,'' Perino said of Townsend today, "and especially the tools that she believes policymakers and the intelligence community and the Justice Department officials and others across the government need in order to beat back the very determined enemy that we face. ''

by Mark Silva

Neither the House nor the Senate are leaning toward giving big telecommunications companies the legal immunity which President Bush is seeking for their cooperation in the secretive Terrorist Surveillance Program. This is prompting another veto threat from Bush.

The House voted 227-189 late yesterday for a reenactment of the surveillance laws without the shield that the Bush administration is seeking for telephone companies accused in lawsuits of violating the public's privacy by cooperating with the government's eavesdropping program -- which the administration insists is aimed at suspected terrorists.

With a sign of similar division in the Senate, the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday also approved a new domestic surveillance law yesterday that omits amnesty for the telecoms. By 10-9, the committee advanced its update of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to the Senate floor and ommitted the immunity provision that another committee had approved.

"The full Senate will yet need to resolve the immunity issue,'' Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said after the committee vote.

President Bush has inisisted that immunity must be part of the deal. And last night, the White House made its objections known:

"This evening House Democrats passed legislation that would dangerously weaken our ability to protect the nation from foreign threats,'' White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said -- noting that the House and Senate had moved more readily in August to reauthorize the surveillance program for six months with their Protect America Act.

By Matthew Hay Brown

Praise for a white Department of Homeland Security employee who dressed for an office Halloween party as a dark-skinned, dreadlocked prisoner could cost the the official who oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement her Senate confirmation.

President Bush used a recess appointment to install Julie Myers as assistant secretary of homeland security in January 2006 after her nomination stalled in the full Senate. Bush renominated her in January 2007, but the Senate has yet to vote on her confirmation.

Now one senator has placed a temporary block on that vote, and Majority Leader Harry Reid is saying that the White House may want to reconsider its support for the embattled administrator.

“I believe that people who serve in government should be sensitive to religious issues, racial issues – personal issues,” Reid told reporters today. “And from what I know about the Halloween party, this woman was involved in awarding a prize to something that I think was very insensitive to what our country’s trying to work through.

“I personally would take a real close look at that before we are able to go the mat,” he said. “I think the White House should really take another look at this person.”

by Frank James, updated Nov. 7, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Maybe the people at Immigration and Customs Enforcement were jealous that its sister agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was getting all the attention for its fake news conference.

What else could explain Julie Myers, the Homeland Security Department assistant secretary who is in charge of ICE, giving an award for best costume to an employee who showed up at an agency get-together with his white skin darkened, wearing dreadlocks and prison stripes?

Myers posed for pictures with the presumably self-satisfied employee. But, alas, looks like we won't get to see them.

After agency people realized what a tremendously impolitic thing it was that she, a top DHS official, should be involved in such an event, the photographic evidence was apparently destroyed.

Myers has apologized and that appears to be the end of it. Except the way things happen within DHS, there really doesn't ever seem to be an end to the unfortunate events, does there?

Here's how the Associated Press is reporting the story:

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top immigration official has apologized after awarding "most original costume" to a Homeland Security Department employee who dressed in prison stripes, dreadlocks and dark makeup for a Halloween gathering at the agency.

Julie Myers, assistant secretary overseeing Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, was part of a three-judge panel that lauded the costume, worn by a white employee, last Wednesday. She also posed for a photo with him.

Myers apologized to employees last Friday in an e-mail, saying some costumes were found to be offensive. On Friday, she called the National Association of African Americans in DHS to inform the group of what had happened, according to a letter sent to association members by the group's vice president, Sjon Shavers.

by Mark Silva

Our friend Jan Crawford Greenburg at ABC News has reported something chilling about the controvery over waterboarding in the U.S. interrogation of suspected terrorists:

"A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration's legal position on torture in 2004, became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.'' Greenburg and Ariane de Vogue reported on World News With Charles Gibson last night.

'Daniel Levin, an acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques,'' reports Greenburg, who covered the Supreme Court for the Chicago Tribune before moving to ABC.

"After the experience,'' the report continues, "Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn't die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning. Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded water boarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way, and with close supervision.

"And, sources tell ABC News, he believed the Bush Administration had failed to offer clear guidelines on its use.''

by Mark Silva

Seldom does anyone in government come as clean as Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security, has come with his disdain for his own agency’s stunt.

“"I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government," Chertoff said yesterday.

It, was the phony press conference that an assistant administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency staged last week in California. With short-notice for its press conference about the Southern California wildfires, and no news reporters in attendance, FEMA pressed its own workers into service as stand-in "reporters.''

They asked questions of Vice Adm. Harvey Johnson, deputy director, about FEMA’s handling of the crisis. “I’m very happy with FEMA’s response,'' Johnson replied at one point.

Chertoff wasn’t too happy. Neither was the White House. With both the homeland security secretary and the White House press secretary saying no one had known in advance that FEMA was planning this event, they both vowed this won’t happen again.

This is sensitive territory for an administration that already had been caught manufacturing its own news. A few years back, Armstrong Williams, a prominent conservative commentator, admitted that he had been paid $240,000 by the Department of Education to promote some of its initiatives on his syndicated program and in media interviews.

So Chertoff was quick to say, as he did yesterday, that someone will be paying for FEMA’s stunt as well.

“"I have made unambiguously clear, in Anglo-Saxon prose, that it is not to ever happen again and there will be appropriate disciplinary action taken against those people who exhibited what I regard as extraordinarily poor judgment,’’ Chertoff said. “There will be appropriate discipline.’’

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

by Mark Silva

It was near the eve of the 2004 election, almost precisely three years ago today, when President Bush climbed on a stage with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Columbus, Ohio.

“Today I am here to pump you up," Schwarzenegger told 20,000 people filling a sports arena with ear-splitting cheers for the California governor who had made his name in action films. Schwarzenegger, as I reported then, noted that: “George Bush is a man of action.''

“If you flex your muscles next Nov. 2," Schwarzenegger said at that Oct. 30 appearance. “I guarantee you President Bush will be back."

Ohio did flex, and, with the help of some precision “micro-targeting’’ by a Bush campaign that raised telephone canvassing and rallying of friendly voters to an art form, Bush won a second term as president.

Schwarzenegger “and I share some things in common,’’ Bush said in Ohio. “We both married well. We both have trouble speaking the English language. We've both got big biceps – well, two out of three ain't bad."

The Bush and Schwarzenegger act went on the road again this week, called into “action’’ by the wildfires of Southern California – were people still calling the governor “The Terminator?’’ Bush asked. Yes, the governor replied, “Especially my wife.”

The president flew in and out for a one-day tour of the disaster and consolation of victims and a public statement – though he fielded no questions. The governor trudged from scene to scene, day after day. “Good afternoon, everybody,’’ Schwarzenegger said wearily at another press conference on Friday. “ I always have to check my watch to make it's the afternoon or the morning.’’

And what questions Schwarzenegger faced at this conferences – unlike the staged questions that a Federal Emergency Management Agency official had fielded at a phony press conference earlier in the week – for which FEMA has apologized, with a scolding from the White House. Real questions, like this one for Schwarzenegger: “The aerial response has been under a lot of criticism lately; cargo planes that sat idly, helicopters sat idly because of government bureaucracy and government rules. In fact, Congressman Rohrabacher called it disgusting, inexcusable foot dragging. Your response? And what could we have done differently?’’

“Well, first of all, let me just say there is a difference between a federal issue and a state issue,’’ Schwarzenegger said. “We have no control over federal issues. But one thing I can tell you, that we deployed all of our resources that we safely could deploy, at all times… And I think that it was really our people have done an extraordinary job.’’

Federal issues and state issues – all reminiscent of another natural disaster which had tested the government’s ability to respond to catastrophe – Hurricane Katrina.

As fire-fighters gain control over the conflagration, Bush and Schwarzenegger are together again today, on the radio – with respective radio addresses to the public. In his today, Bush said: “I went to Southern California with a message: We want you to know the country cares for you. We're concerned about you, your neighborhoods, and your homes. Things may look dismal now, but there is a better day ahead. And we will not forget you in Washington, D.C.’’

Schwarzenegger, with punctuation like a Hollywood script, said this:

President Bush with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican Rep.Brian Bilbray and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

by Mark Silva

Was there a little dig for the Democrats in Louisiana in President Bush’s words of commendation for Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the scene of wildfire recovery today?

“There is no hill he’s not willing to charge, no problem he’s not willing to solve,’’ Bush said of the California governor. “It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the statehouse willing to take the lead.''

Unlike, say, Louisana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who was faulted perhaps as much as the Federal Emergency Management Agency was for inadequate preparation and response for Hurricane Katrina’s assault on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast?

Shaking hands with rows of dusty fire crews at the Witch Creek Fire command post at Kit Carson city park in Escondido, Bush, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the governor, said, " I'm proud to be here with the senator, the Terminator -- do you still get called the Terminator?''

"Yes,'' Schwarzenegger said. "Especially by my wife. ''

Schwarzenegger, who toured the fire-disaster area with the president today, thanked the president for “coming to Cal-i-FOH-nia.’’

The governor, noting that 1,400 homes had been destroyed and a half-million acres burned, called the response inspirational.

Bush consoles Jay Jeffcoate and his wife Kendra after visiting the remains of their home damaged by California wildfires. AP Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais

by Mark Silva

The threat of another terrorist attack inside the United States is, in a word, "overblown,'' according to John Mueller, a professor of political science at Ohio State University.

Politicians and bureaucrats -- and the media -- have vastly overstated the threat that al Qaeda in particular poses to the homeland, Mueller says, and few have questioned them.

"We've seen the enemy,'' he says, "and the enemy is us.''

"What basically has happened is a massive, official over-exaggeration,'' Mueller said over lunch today at a forum sponsored by George Washington University. Citing numerous high-level leaders of the intelligence, crime-fighting and homeland security agencies who have spoken of their "intuition'' and "gut'' feelings about another attack coming, he contends the true risk in this situation has been overlooked. "We're now down to instincts and 'gut.'

"It seems to me... we've had this going on now for five or six years... and no one has called this into question,'' said Mueller, Woody Hayes chair of national security at Ohio State and author of Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. "It seems to me it's time for someone to examine it more fully.''

by Mark Silva

With a half-million people evacuated from fire-threatend homes in Southern California, President Bush said today that he has pledged all the federal assistance possible to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a fight against nature itself. Bush will head to California tomorrow.

"I had a conversation with Gov. Schwarzenegger,'' Bush said following a Cabinet meeting at the White House today. "My question to him was, 'Are you getting what you need; are the people there in California getting the help they need from the federal agencies to help the good folks in California deal with these devastating fires?' His answer was, yes. I assured him that if he needs anything, then, great, we'll provide it, we'll do so.

"I've been meeting with my Cabinet secretaries that are responsible for helping the state and local authorities fight these fires,'' the president said. "I believe the effort is well coordinated. I know we're getting the manpower and assets on the ground that have been requested by the state and local authorities.

"I wish we could control the wind, because one of the things that's hampering our joint capability of fighting these fires is the strong westerly winds,'' he said. "I'm told the winds may be dying down soon, in which case it will make it -- make this equipment we've got in place a lot more effective at helping fight the fires. ''

The president this week declared an emergency in seven southern California counties and today signed a "major disaster declaration,'' enabling federal funds to be released to families who have been disrupted by the wildfires.

"Looking forward to going out to California tomorrow,'' he said. "We'll continue to make sure that our efforts are coordinated, that we are responsive to the needs and people.

"And most importantly, I want the people in Southern California to know that Americans all across this land care deeply about them, we're concerned about their safety, we're concerned about their property, and we offer our prayers and hopes that all will turn out fine in the end,'' the president said. "In the meantime, they can rest assured that the federal government will do everything we can to help put out these fires.''

Homes go up in flames at the Valley Oaks mobile home park near Fallbrook, California, Monday, 2007. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

by Mark Silva, updated

It is a scene eerily reminiscent of the floods that overwhelmed the Gulf Coast: Tens of thousands of people evacuated from their homes, and many huddled in a stadium.

President Bush declared seven counties of Southern California disaster areas today, which unleashes the resources of the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- now "mobilized.''

This is an overhauled FEMA, not the same one that responded -- or failed to respond -- to the flooding that Hurricane Katrina unleashed on New Orleans and the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi. And the leader of FEMA today is a firefighter by profession, David Paulison, the former fire chief in Miami.

Southern California will need FEMA's help and more to overcome waves of flame, fanned by furious Santa Anna winds, which are overcoming the hills spanning a wide region spanning from San Diego to Santa Barbara.

"All of us across this nation are concerned for the families who have lost their homes and the many families who have been evacuated from their homes," the president said today, during a speech at the National Defense University. "We send the help of the federal government."

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at the fires. Photo by his office.

See the president's emergency declaration:

by Mark Silva

President Bush, demanding "flexibility" in the pursuit of suspected terrorists, insisted Wednesday he would not sign a new domestic spying bill if it unduly limits the administration's authority to eavesdrop without warrants.

The president is demanding corporate immunity from lawsuits against telecommunications companies that have aided the National Security Agency in a controversial warrantless wiretapping program, as well as authority to secretly monitor suspect communications that pass through the United States.

But congressional leaders, insisting on court oversight of the administration's surveillance, are not willing to give the president the latitude he is seeking. And they are reluctant to release companies from liability for their roles in the government's program without learning much more about the details of this surveillance.

With House leaders planning to take their legislation to the floor next week, a new confrontation with the White House looms over the renewal of the terrorist surveillance law set to expire in February. And the president is entering that debate with warnings about the threat of terrorism.

"Terrorists in faraway lands are plotting and planning new ways to kill Americans," Bush said Wednesday on the South Lawn of the White House as House leaders rolled out their bill. "The security of our country and the safety of our citizens depend on learning about their plans."

See the rest of the story in today's Tribune:

by Mark Silva

The White House maintains that it is “building a culture of preparedness’’ with its new national strategy for homeland security.

Yet the new report arrives on a day on which it is reported in Washington that a private intelligence firm which monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new videotape of Osama bin Laden before its official release last month and notified the Bush administration.

The firm gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the release by al Qaeda, the Washington Post reported today. Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had started downloading the video from the company's Web site. By the middle of that afternoon, the video and a transcript had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, told the newspaper that this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation.

The White House, saying that intelligence agencies are looking into the matter, insisted today that the leak did not come from 1600 Pennsylvania

“We were not’’ the source of the leak, Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said today – yet the White House certainly is concerned about it. “We really want American citizens to know that their government is responsive... and they should know their sources will be protected.’’

Moments later, the White House released its new homeland security plan.

“This strategy is a national strategy and not simply a federal strategy,’’ Frances Townsend, the president’s homeland security adviser, told reporters, noting that it builds upon a report issued in 2002. “It incorporates lessons learned from exercises and real-world catastrophes.’’

Asked about the leak reported today, Townsend said: "We do know that... God knows, we'll learn more as time goes on, but I understand that the link to the site was provided to the intelligence community, and the concern was that that link is the piece that -- was the thing that was made public.

“Look, we are only going to be successful in the war on terror with the help of the American people,’’ she said. “Any time an individual or commercial entity cooperates with us… and doesn’t get the protection they deserve, that is an area for concern.’’ The Director of National Intelligence will be looking into the matter, Townsend said.

by Mark Silva

Facing pointed new questions about tough methods used by the administration in the interrogation of suspected terrorists, President Bush insisted Friday that "this government does not torture people."

At the same time, administration officials are adamantly refusing to discuss certain tactics that reportedly have been allowed—such as head-slapping and water-boarding—in efforts to procure information from suspects detained in secret prisons.

After years of controversy over the conduct of U.S. authorities in the war against terror, including the abuse of inmates at the U.S.-run prison at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the Bush administration is suddenly facing a renewed onslaught of questions over secretive interrogation tactics, and the furor is now expected to play a major role in the confirmation hearings for Michael Mukasey, nominated to be attorney general.

Congress has forbidden torture, and the Justice Department, declaring torture "abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms," spelled out in a December 2004 memorandum the tactics that would impermissibly inflict "severe physical or mental pain and suffering."

Yet early in 2005, The New York Times reported this week, the department secretly authorized some of the CIA's harshest techniques for interrogation at secret prisons overseas. Those techniques, the Times reported, included head-slapping and exposure to cold and simulated drownings, including using them in combination.

Congressional leaders now are demanding to see the memorandums that the Justice Department reportedly issued, with leaders calling approval of head-slapping and water-boarding news to them. But the White House insists it privately briefed members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on all its authorized tactics.

More broadly, human rights experts are now questioning the administration's insistence that it does not torture.

"President Bush is saying one thing, but there seem to be other things happening around the world," said Carl Tobias, a professor of law at the University of Richmond.

See the rest of the story in today's Tribune:

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino at the podium of the press briefing room. AP Photo by Ron Edmonds

by Mark Silva

The Bush administration does not condone torture.

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said so today.

"The policy of the United States is not to torture,'' she said. "The president has not authorized it, he will not authorize it.''

She also declined to comment on specific questions about why the Justice Department reportedly had authorized head-slapping, fake drownings and freezings in the interrogation of suspected terrorists. But she did say that Americans want the government to protect them.

The White House’s comments follow a report today by The New York Times that the Justice Department had secretly issued a written opinion in 2005 authorizing painful physical and psychological interrogation tactics for suspected terrorists.

These tactics reportedly included head-slapping, simulated drownings and exposure to freezing cold.

"We live in the 21st Century,'' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in response to the report, "not during the years of the inquisition, 1492. And that’s very difficult for this great country, this great democracy, this beacon of liberty, to have us defending interrogation techniques that deal with torture.

"It’s out of the question. It’s wrong,'' Reid said. "And we have to get to the bottom of it. I think that there should be a full, thorough investigation of (former Attorney General Alberto) Gonzales and what his minions did to override the wishes of Congress."