Don’t get caught flat-footed in front of the press! Below is a quick rundown of today’s “must reads.” If you see an article that interests you, scroll down to read it in full. – John T. Doolittle, House Republican Conference Secretary

THE MORNING MURMUR – Wednesday, June 15, 2005

1. Memo Suggests Annan Oil-For-Food Link – Associated Press
New information suggests that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan knew more than he revealed about an oil-for-food contract that was awarded to the company that employed his son. A timely discovery considering the House’s vote on UN reforms this week.

2. The Red Cross and Congress – Wall Street Journal Editorial
The Red Cross gets special access to prisons around the world as a neutral observer. But for more than three years now the ICRC has abused that position of trust to wage an unprecedented propaganda war against the U.S.

3. Rumsfeld defends Gitmo – Washington Times
Yesterday, Rumsfeld said that the U.S. extracted valuable inside information from a would-be September 11 hijacker who underwent interrogation at Guantanamo Bay – information that led to the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11th attacks; the identities of 20 of Bin Laden’s bodyguards; and the disruption of planned terror attacks around the world.

4. A Kerry moment – Washington Times
Sen. John Kerry assured his colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee yesterday that he was for free-trade agreements before he was against CAFTA saying he has “voted for every single trade agreement.” But congressional records indicate that the three free-trade pacts were approved without his support.

5. GM mirrors U.S. economy – USA Today Editorial
Reflective of the national economy, GM spends about $1,500 on health care for each car it makes in the USA, about twice as much as it spends on steel. More than 15 cents of every dollar spent in the USA goes into health care. The equivalent for many other developed countries is not even 10 cents.

FULL ARTICLES BELOW:

1. Memo Suggests Annan Oil-For-Food Link – Associated Press

Jun 14, 2005
By NICK WADHAMS

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Investigators of the U.N. oil-for-food program said Tuesday they are "urgently reviewing" new information that suggests U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan may have known more than he revealed about a contract that was awarded to the company that employed his son.

The December 1998 memo from Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna Inspections S.A., mentions brief discussions with Annan "and his entourage" at a summit in Paris in 1998 about Cotecna's bid for a $10 million-a-year contract under oil-for-food.

If accurate, the memo could contradict a major finding of the Independent Inquiry Committee - that there wasn't enough evidence to show that Annan knew about efforts by Cotecna, which employed his son, Kojo, to win the contract. Cotecna learned it won the contract on Dec. 11, 1998, days after the meeting.

The statement from the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, said it would "conduct additional investigation regarding this new information."

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said U.N. officials reviewed the final records of the Paris trip that note every meeting that took place, "and there is no metion in that trip record of any exchange with Michael Wilson."

"We spoke to the secretary-general who is in Paris today, and he has no recollection of any such exchange," Eckhard said.

In a statement released earlier Tuesday, Cotecna said it had found the memo as part of its "continued efforts to assist investigators." The Geneva-based firm again denied that it committed any wrongdoing in obtaining the contract.

The memo "may result in speculation about the procurement of its oil-for-food authentication contract," Cotecna said. "Cotecna once again confirms that it acted at all times appropriately and ethically in its bidding for, winning and performing that contract."

Both Annans also deny any link between Kojo Annan's employment and the awarding of the U.N. contract to the company.

The internal Cotecna memo from Wilson, a childhood friend of Kojo Annan, was first reported Tuesday by The New York Times.

In the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, Wilson said he "had brief discussions with (Kofi Annan) and his entourage" about Cotecna's effort to win the contract.

Cotecna "could count on their support," Wilson wrote.

The memo, dated Dec. 4, 1998, was written a week before the company won the U.N. contract.

Eckhard said the views attributed to Annan in Wilson's memo "could not have come from the secretary-general because he had no knowledge that Cotecna was a contender for that contract."

He said the United Nations had turned over the records of the Paris trip to Volcker.

In an interim report in March, Volcker's committee accused Cotecna and Kojo Annan of trying to conceal their relationship after the firm was awarded the contract.

It said Kofi Annan didn't properly investigate possible conflicts of interest surrounding the contract, but cleared him of trying to influence the awarding of Cotecna's contract or violating U.N. rules.

Associated Press reporter Sam Cage in Geneva contributed to this story.
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050614/D8ANGNEO0.html


2. The Red Cross and Congress – Wall Street Journal Editorial
June 15, 2005; Page A14

The International Committee of the Red Cross gets special access to prisons around the world as the neutral observer body designated by the Geneva Conventions. But for more than three years now the ICRC has abused that position of trust to wage an unprecedented propaganda war against the United States.

Leaked ICRC reports have described conditions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as "tantamount to torture" because indefinite detention is stressful. And just last month the ICRC's Washington office broke its confidentiality agreement with the U.S. government to fan the flames created by Newsweek's false Quran-abuse story.

Fortunately, Capitol Hill is starting to notice. A study released Monday by the Senate Republican Policy Committee says the ICRC has "lost its way," and suggests annual reviews be conducted by the State, Defense, and Justice Departments to certify that the organization truly adheres to its stated principles of "neutrality, impartiality and humanity."

In particular, the study raps the ICRC for its efforts to "afford terrorists and insurgents the same rights and privileges as [uniformed] military personnel" by misleadingly pretending that a radical document called Protocol 1 is settled international law. This causes the ICRC to "inaccurately and unfairly accuse the U.S. of not adhering to the Geneva Conventions."

U.S. taxpayers are the largest contributors to the ICRC's budget ($233 million, or 26%, in 2003). They have a right to expect an honest interpretation of the Geneva Conventions for that money, not more leaked reports that will be spun to give aid and comfort to al Qaeda.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB11100.html


3. Rumsfeld defends Gitmo – Washington Times

By Rowan Scarborough
June 15, 2005

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that the U.S. extracted valuable inside information on al Qaeda from a would-be September 11 hijacker who underwent rough interrogation tactics at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mr. Rumsfeld said information from Mohammed al-Qahtani, the so-called "20th hijacker," and others led to the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks; the identities of 20 bodyguards of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden; and the disruption of planned terror attacks around the world.

"He has direct ties to al Qaeda's top leadership, including Osama bin Laden," Mr. Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon press conference in opening remarks meant to respond to an article in the June 20 issue of Time magazine about a secret log that detailed how the Americans broke al-Qahtani.

"While at Guantanamo, Qahtani and other detainees have provided valuable information, including insights into al Qaeda planning for September 11, including recruiting and logistics."
Mr. Rumsfeld approved techniques such as mild physical contact, stress positions and isolation in December 2002 for a select group of detainees, including al-Qahtani.

A bin Laden confidant, al-Qahtani tried to enter the U.S. in August 2001 to join the al Qaeda hijackers. But an alert immigration official refused him entry and al-Qahtani returned to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, where he was later captured by coalition authorities and was transferred to Guantanamo in 2002.

Al-Qahtani turned into a font of information on al Qaeda, including its planning and its personalities, Pentagon officials say. But it is the way that a specially trained team of interrogators got the nuggets of data that has human rights groups leveling charges of "torture" and calling for an independent investigation.

The prison log, as reported by Time, details an hour-by-hour campaign to break the hardened al Qaeda operative using techniques the Pentagon considered harsh, but short of torture. At the time, U.S. officials were eager to learn whether future attacks on the nation were in the pipeline.

The defense secretary is one of the administration's most hard-nosed players against Islamic terrorists. He has offered no apology for authorizing rough interrogation tactics, although he rescinded much of the order in January 2003 after Pentagon lawyers doubted the tactics' effectiveness.

"The kind of people held at Guantanamo include terrorist trainers, bomb-makers, extremist recruiters and financiers, bodyguards of Osama bin Laden and would-be suicide bombers," Mr. Rumsfeld said yesterday. "They are not common car thieves."

The Pentagon built the detention center, later to be named Camp Delta, to house the hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured after the invasion of Afghanistan. The prison is both a place to interrogate detainees and a mechanism to keep them from returning to al Qaeda.

It was put at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, outside U.S. territory, to ensure that the Pentagon had complete discretion over detainees' futures. But defense lawyers have upset Pentagon plans by going to court in the U.S. and winning a ruling that detainees must have access to some type of judicial proceedings.

Responding to calls from Democrats and some Republicans that Guantanamo be closed, Mr. Rumsfeld remains resolute.

"As long as there remains a need to keep terrorists from striking again, a facility will continue to be needed," he said of the jail that costs nearly $100 million per year to operate. "The real problem is not Guantanamo Bay. The problem is that, to a large extent, we are in unexplored territory with this unconventional and complex struggle against extremism."

Irene Khan, secretary-general of Amnesty International, has likened the 520-inmate detention center at Guantanamo to the Soviet gulag, the network of forced labor camps, set up by Josef Stalin, where millions died.

The group's U.S. director has called Mr. Rumsfeld an "architect of torture" and suggested that other countries indict and arrest him.

Mr. Rumsfeld has rejected the criticism.

"The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay was established for the simple reason that the United States needed a safe and secure location to detain and interrogate enemy combatants," he said. "It was the best option available."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20050615-123704-4333r.htm

4. A Kerry moment – Washington Times

Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, assured his colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee yesterday that he was for free-trade agreements before he was against the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

"I have voted for every single trade agreement. I am not a protectionist," Mr. Kerry said as lawmakers debated CAFTA. "Even in the campaign last year, when there were enormous pressures not to, I voted for Chile, Singapore and Australia," he said.

Congressional records, however, indicate he did not vote at all on the free-trade pacts. The three were approved without his support.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/inpolitics.htm


5. GM mirrors U.S. economy – USA Today Editorial

June 15, 2005

It has been a while since the old adage "What's good for General Motors is good for America" has been taken seriously. The saying — an embellishment of comments made by onetime CEO Charles Wilson — no longer fits a company that has lost its iconic status.

GM has been shedding jobs and market share for longer than many of its younger drivers have been alive. Last week, it announced it would cut 25,000 positions. That's on top of the more than 500,000 jobs eliminated since 1978. Its market share, 25.4%, is about half its peak in the 1970s.

Indeed, anyone looking for America's current engines of growth might focus on places like Silicon Valley, rather than Detroit. Yet, in a way, the old saying about GM is as true today as ever — not because the company is so important to the economy, but because its problems are so reflective of the nation's. Neither GM nor the nation has a clear vision for prospering amid intense global competition, and neither has addressed its chief economic threat: runaway health care costs.

Some of GM's problems are unique. Too many of its cars are uninspiring. Some might even be called ugly, a moniker that has dogged the Pontiac Aztek. And at a time when gas is more than $2 a gallon, GM is stuck with lots full of guzzling SUVs.

Even so, GM might be able to handle these problems if it could control its health costs. It spends about $1,500 on health care for each car it makes in the USA, about twice as much as it spends on steel. This is driven by benefits for 1.1 million workers, retirees and families.

GM management has begun telling labor leaders that its 109,000 hourly workers, who now pay 7% of their healthcare costs, will have to pay closer to the 27% that its 39,000 salaried workers pay.

Union leaders are acknowledging the problem. That's a start, but a total solution is beyond GM's grasp.

More than 15 cents of every dollar spent in the USA goes into health care. The equivalent for many other developed countries is not even 10 cents. In lesser developed places, such as China and India, it's much lower.

The federal government has a tougher task, but ultimately a broad package of health care reforms is likely to include asking those who can pay more to do so. That would not only shift some costs off the backs of overburdened employers, it also would drive down costs by encouraging people to be more judicious in their health care decisions.

GM and America's economy are heading toward the same cliff. Each needs someone in the driver's seat to steer it to safety.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-06-14-gm-edit_x.htm